t^^tS'^iS>^iS'^iS>CiS>Ot^^iS> 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 




WATER-COLOR SKETCH OF SHELLEY, 

probably by Echvard Ellerker Williams, 1S21-1S22 



tS'0^^iS'^iS>C!S>^tS>^iS>CiS' 



THE 

Esdaile Notebook 

A Volume of Early Poems 

by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

Edited by Kenneth Neill Cameron 
from the Original Manuscript in 
The Carl H, Pforzheimer Library 




NEW YORK 

Alfred 'A* Knopf 
1964 







L. C. catalog card number: 64-1^444 

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK, 
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. 

Copyright © 1964 by Tiif Carl and Lily Pforzheimer 
Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this 
book may be reproduced in any form without permis- 
sion in writing from the publisher, except by a re- 
viewer, who may quote brief passages and reproduce 
not more than three illustrations in a review to be 
printed in a magazine or newspaper. 

Manufactured in the United States of America, 
and distributed by Random House, Inc. 
Published simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, 
by Random House of Canada, Limited. 

FIRST EDITION 



ABP,. 
Gift V 
Publisher 
Cv^py 



^^^Oi3>OtS'^^^iS'^!S'OiS' 



Foreword 



Publication of the Esdaile Notebook, separately and at 
this time, in the midst of continuing progress in editing 
material for Shelley and his Circle, represents both a tribute 
to the strength in spirit and in resources with which my late 
father, Carl H. Pforzheimer (1879-1957), endowed his Li- 
brary and a desire to make available at the earliest possible 
moment the only major body, so far as is known, of hitherto 
unpublished poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

Quite aside from the number of scholars using it — 
through study there, constant flow of correspondence, and 
a steady provision of microfilm or photostats and other 
modern scholarly apparatus — the Library maintains its 
vitality by a selective but vigorous acquisition policy. 
From April 1957 to date. The Carl H. Pforzheimer 
Library has acquired over 500 manuscripts and books, 
chiefly relating to the Shelley and his Circle project. More 
than half are manuscripts. These include over a dozen 
items in the poet's own hand, five in Mary W. Shelley's, 
three letters from Charles Bysshe Shelley (who died at the 
age of twelve) to his sister Eliza lanthe (who married 
an Esdaile), and of course the Esdaile Notebook, the most 
important Library acquisition since my father's death. 

The Esdaile Notebook is appealingly simple in appear- 
ance. A book 7.3 by 4.8 inches, 0.8 inch thick, in marbled 

(V) 



FOREWORD 

boards, it resembles a medium-sized diary. Of its total of 
276 pages, the first 189 contain the poems (and a few blank 
leaves at the beginning), 57 poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
one probably by his first wife, Harriet Westbrook Shelley. 
The final 87 pages are blank. Of the 57 poems by 
Shelley, only eight have been published in full from the 
Esdaile Notebook text, and six from other manuscript 
sources. The total number of lines in the poems is 2925. 
Of these, 511 have been published from the Esdaile Note- 
book text, 553 from other manuscripts, and, of these latter, 
225 "differ in wording, in one degree or another, from 
the corresponding lines in the Esdaile Notebook," as de- 
tailed in the Publication History below. 

The Esdaile Notebook, as I have indicated, contains the 
only major body of unpublished poetry by Shelley. The 
reason for this is that it has a different provenance from 
most of Shelley's other literary manuscripts. These were 
inherited by Shelley's second wife, Mary Shelley, and 
passed from her to their son. Sir Percy Florence Shelley. 
Sir Percy Florence Shelley died without issue in 1889; 
Shelley's literary manuscripts subsequently went to the 
Bodleian Library in Oxford. Most of them were included 
by Mary Shelley in her editions of Shelley's poetry and 
prose and others have been published in later editions. 

The Esdaile Notebook, however, was written before 
Shelley married Mary. It was in the possession of his first 
wife, Harriet Westbrook, and apparently was presented to 
her by Shelley. 

It is not known exactly when Shelley gave the Esdaile 
Notebook to Harriet. As noted in the Introduction, the 
Notebook is really two entities in one. The first section 
ends with "The wandering Jew's soliloquy." This section, 
some 2774 lines, Shelley intended for publication, and he 
had finished compiling it probably by the spring of 1813. 

(vi) 



FOREWORD 

It was turned down for publication by Shelley's friend, the 
publisher Thomas Hookham, a few weeks later. But Shel- 
ley kept the Notebook, and, presumably in the fall of 
1813, copied into it two sonnets, one on Harriet and one 
on lanthe, his infant daughter. After these sonnets come 
five poems in Harriet's hand, four of them by Shelley, one 
probably by Harriet. This latter section containing the two 
sonnets and the poems in Harriet's hand is designated the 
keepsake section, for the poems in it were not part of 
the original group put together for publication by Hook- 
ham. It seems likely that Shelley gave the Notebook to 
Harriet shortly after Hookham turned it down and that 
it was hers when he copied the sonnets into it for her. 
We know that she had it by 1815 because she dates one 
of the poems in her hand "1815." Whether it was with her 
in her lodgings when she committed suicide in November 
1816 we do not know. But if it was not with her it was 
presumably in her father's house. All we actually know is 
that lanthe, whose name appears on the inside cover, later 
inherited it, and we can presume that it was given to her 
by the Westbrooks, most probably by her aunt Eliza 
Westbrook. 

In 1837 lanthe married Edward Jeffries Esdaile, of 
a well-known banking family, by whom she had three 
children who survived to adulthood. On lanthe's death 
in 1876 the Notebook went to her daughter, Eliza 
Margaret Esdaile, who often moved from one house to 
another and therefore placed the Notebook for safekeeping 
with her brother, Charles Edward Jeffries Esdaile, who 
resided at the family seat, Cothelstone House, near 
Taunton in Somerset. On Eliza Margaret's death in 1930 
the Notebook was willed to her niece, Mrs. Lettice A. 
Worrall (nee Esdaile), Shelley's great-granddaughter. Mrs. 
Worrall sold the Notebook on July 2, 1962. 

(vii) 



FOREWORD 

The Notebook has been in the hands of Shelley's de- 
scendants from 1816 until 1962. Throughout these years 
the Esdaile family refused permission for its publication 
as a whole, but Charles Edward Jeffries Esdaile, during the 
time he held custody for his sister, allowed Edward Dow- 
den to publish some of the poems of biographical import 
in his life of Shelley in 1886. Dowden at this time copied 
the poems into two copybooks and made some notes on 
them. In 1961 The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library purchased 
the first of these copybooks from Mrs. Lennox Robinson, 
Dowden's granddaughter. 

All my contacts with the Worrall family have been most 
stimulating and friendly, one particularly happy result 
being the acquisition by The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, 
from these direct descendants of the poet, of the three 
letters written by the nine-year-old son of the poet in 1823-4 
to his older sister lanthe. There also has been acquired 
directly from the family such memorabilia as Shelley's 
baby shirt, christening robe, silver whistle and rattle with 
a ring handle (clearly indicating that even the infancy of 
one Percy Bysshe Shelley was not immune to the excruci- 
ating need for solace while teething). All of these items 
were presumably given by Shelley's mother to Harriet on 
the birth of lanthe. More intimately related to the back- 
ground of this volume was the acquisition — also from the 
Worrall family — of the beautiful, gem-studded ring which 
Harriet received from the youthful poet. 

All these contacts and purchases are consistent with, and 
in furtherance of, the policies of the Foundation in ad- 
ministering and maintaining the Library to concentrate 
mainly on material relating to Shelley and his Circle and 
the Romantic period in general. It should be further noted 
here that the manuscripts in The Carl H. Pforzheimer 
Library collection of Shelley and those associated with him 

( viii ) 



FOREWORD 

will eventually appear in their entirety in Shelley and his 
Circle. The first two volumes of this work appeared in 
1961, published by the Harvard University Press in this 
country and the Oxford University Press in Great Britain, 
and the total work may well run to some eight volumes. 
The Esdaile Notebook will, in accordance with policy, 
also be included in a later volume of Shelley and his Circle, 
and will be presented therein according to the editorial 
procedures established for that work. Its text will represent 
a duplication of Shelley's manuscript as closely as type will 
allow, retaining the original wording and punctuation, and 
including bibliographical notes and collations as well as 
textual notes. 

The obvious measure of intellectual generosity, mutual 
respect, and understanding between the two primary pub- 
lishers and the editor involved, should not be overlooked. 
It is perhaps not unjustified to express a feeling that this 
has come about because of admiration for the collection 
and its founder. With great satisfaction in this spirit of 
scholarly collaboration The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library 
presents The Esdaile Notebook, dedicating this volume to 
those who pause in these parlous times to read and enjoy it. 

Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr. 

Vigil Hill 

Purchase, New York 
October ip6^ 



tS'^^^tS-^tS'^iS'^iS'^^^^ 



Acknowledgments 



Perhaps the most satisfying, and certainly the easiest, task 
assigned to me as president of The Carl and Lily 
Pforzheimer Foundation, Inc., which maintains and ad- 
ministers The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, is the privilege 
of thanking the many persons whose combined efforts have 
materially aided the editing and publication of this 
volume. 

The Foreword makes brief allusion to two publishers 
and an editor, which requires further elaboration here. 
The Foundation had reached an agreement early in i960 
with the Harvard University Press to publish Shelley and 
his Circle; Volumes I and II appeared in 1961; and the 
Library staff was heavily engaged in putting copy for 
Volumes III and IV into final form when the Esdaile 
Notebook was acquired. Much hitherto unpublished 
Shelley material became suddenly available. This certainly 
demanded both an early publication and a format de- 
signed for a wider audience than could be reached by the 
specialized editorial presentation developed for other 
Shelleyana in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, as repre- 
sented in Shelley and his Circle. 

One of the first to recognize this was the director of the 
Harvard University Press, Mr. Thomas J. Wilson. With 
characteristic understanding and insight, he agreed not 
only that the Library staff should concentrate its efforts 
on the Esdaile Notebook but also that this present volume 

(xi) 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

would not detract from later inclusion of the Notebook 
in Shelley and his Circle. Gratitude to this distinguished 
leader in the field of scholarly publishing is deep and very 
personal. 

We are all very proud that this volume bears the im- 
print of Alfred A. Knopf, whom Mr. Wilson in a recent 
article described as "the most exciting personality in Amer- 
ican book publishing, the individual who has done most 
in the last forty years to make taste in content and design 
of books a matter of economic as well as cultural import- 
ance." Yet even more important to the undersigned is the 
pleasure of working with a warm friend and good neigh- 
bor, both happy circumstances which my parents thor- 
oughly enjoyed for many years. 

This is a welcome opportunity to express agreement 
with Tom Wilson and to say "thank you" to Blanche and 
Alfred Knopf. 

The editor. Professor Kenneth Neill Cameron, whom 
my father considered the outstanding Shelley scholar in 
the United States, has been associated with The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library since 1952. His scholarship is coupled 
with a versatility and capacity for accomplishment which 
has made this volume possible without adversely affecting 
the total effort on Shelley and his Circle. We are all grate- 
ful for his having assumed a double burden. 

It should be emphasized here that preparing the Note- 
book for publication represents a collective effort by the 
staff of The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library. Miss Winifred 
M. Davis, Library Editorial Assistant, worked out some 
of the more difficult sections of the original transcript and 
checked it all. She assisted in the preparation of the text 
and Textual Notes, a task beset with complex punctuation 
and other problems. She read all editorial writing, in- 
cluding the Commentaries and Introduction, hunted out 

(xii) 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

errors, and made critical suggestions. Mrs. Edith S. Degani, 
Library Cataloguer, compiled the Index of Titles and the 
Index of First Lines and researched some of the basic ma- 
terial for the Publication History, Mrs. Margot M. Smith, 
Library Secretary, transcribed most of the original manu- 
script, taking in her stride many readings of extremely 
difficult words, compiled the tables included in the Pub- 
lication History, and also did research on specific points 
as required. Mrs. Smith did most of the typing of several 
drafts of the whole book. All three have continued their 
work on Shelley and his Circle. 

Invaluable liaison has been continuously provided be- 
tween the Library and the office of the Foundation by its 
Assistant Secretary, Mr. Joseph F. Quigley, who main- 
tained a focal point for clearing the multitude of detail 
necessary to prepare this volume. 

Thanks are also extended to Messrs. Lewis A. Spence 
and Martin F. Richman of Root, Barrett, Cohen, Knapp & 
Smith, New York, for their painstaking counsel to the 
Foundation whenever legal problems arose. 

Thanks go to Mr. Sidney R. Jacobs, production man- 
ager, and to Mr. Patrick Gregory, editor, and the many at 
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., who have helped on this volume. 
Thanks also to Miss Doris Charrington, the present owner 
of Field Place, Horsham, for permission to photograph the 
house; and to the Director and Trustees of The Pierpont 
Morgan Library for permission to reproduce the portrait 
of P. B. Shelley by Edward Ellerker Williams. 

Finally, the undersigned is very indebted to the officers 
and directors of the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Founda- 
tion, Inc., for their co-operation and support. 

C.H.P., Jr. 

October ip6^ 



IS'^IS'^IS-OIS'OIS'^IS'O^^^ 



Contents 



Introduction 5 

Poems 55 

Commentaries ly^ 

Publication History 575 

Bibliographical Description 52^ 

Textual Notes 55/ 

Reference Sources, Abridged Title List 57/ 

Index of Titles 575 

Index of First Lines ^yy 



(XV) 



<&OJ502c>^i&0«iO«50«siO«i 



Poems 



To Harriet ("Whose is the love") 37 

A sabbath Walk 38 

The Crisis 40 

Passion 41 

To Harriet ("Never, O never") 43 

Falshood and Vice 44 

To the Emperors of Russia and Austria 48 

To November 50 

Written on a beautiful day in Spring 52 

On leaving London for Wales 53 

A winter's day 56 

To Liberty 58 

On Robert Emmet's tomb 60 

a Tale of Society as it is 62 

The solitary 67 

The Monarch's funeral 68 

To the Republicans of North America 71 

Written at Cwm Elian 73 

To Death 74 

Dark Spirit of the desart rude 77 

( xvii ) 



POEMS 

The pale, the cold and the moony smile 79 

Death-spurning rocks! 81 

The Tombs 83 

To Harriet ("It is not blasphemy") 85 

Sonnet. To Harriet on her birth day 88 

Sonnet. To a balloon, laden with Knowledge 89 

Sonnet. On launching some bottles 90 

Sonnet. On waiting for a wind 9 1 
To Harriet ("Harriet! thy kiss to my soul is deaf) 92 

Mary to the Sea-Wind 94 

A retrospect of Times of Old 95 

The Voyage 98 

A Dialogue 108 

How eloquent are eyes! 1 10 

Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 112 

To the Moonbeam 113 

Poems to Mary 115 

To Mary I 116 

To Mary H 118 

To Mary HI 119 

To the Lover of Mary 121 

Dares the Lama 123 

/ will kneel at thine altar 125 

Fragment . . . bombardment of Copenhagen 127 

On an Icicle 128 

Cold are the blasts 129 

Henry and Louisa 131 

A Translatioji of The Marsellois Hymn 144 

Written in very early youth 147 

Zeinab and Kathema 148 

( xviii ) 



POEMS 

The Retrospect 155 

The wandering Jew's soliloquy 161 

To lanthe 163 

Evening — to Harriet 164 

To Harriett ("Thy look of love") 165 

Full many a mind 167 

To Harriet (''Oh Harriet, love like mine") 168 

Late was the night 170 

To St Irvyne 171 



tS>0!S'^iS>^iS'0^^iS'^iS>^^ 



Illustrations 



FRONTISPIECE 

Water-color sketch of Shelley, probably by 
Edward Ellerker Williams, 1821-1822 

[By permission of the Director and Trustees of 
The Pierpont Morgan Library] 

MAP 

Shelley's travels and places of residence, 1809-1813 page 2 

FOLLOWING PAGE 200 

I The Esdaile Notebook 

[Photo by Urs Zangger] 

II "Field Place," a recent photograph 

[By permission of the present owner, Miss Doris Charrington; 
photo by John Jackson, Horsham] 

III The dedicatory poem, with the title in Harriet's hand 

IV The last line of "A retrospect of Times of Old," with 
Shelley's line count following it; the opening of "The 
Voyage"; the conclusion of the final footnote of "A 
retrospect of Times of Old" 

V The first page of "Henry and Louisa" 

VI The final page of "Zeinab and Kathema," showing 
Shelley's corrections 

VII The first page of "To Harriett ('Thy look of love')," 
in Harriet Shelley's hand 

VIII Shelley's "St. Irvyne" 

[By permission of the Trustees of the British Museum] 



(xxi) 



l^^!^^ts>^iS'^!S'^iS>^iS>^^ 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



SHELLEY'S TRAVELS 

AND 

PLACES of RESIDENCE 



zdited and Redrawn from 
"Paterson's'Roads, i8tt" 







60 

map byjialacias 



FRANCE 



$0«505iOJ50J3kOi50«&OJSi 



Introduction 



THE POEMS in the Esdaile Notebook are, it must be 
understood at the outset, early poems, poems not of 
fulfillment but of promise. Shelley was probably only six- 
teen when he wrote the earliest of them and just turned 
twenty when he wrote the latest. They are not the product 
of the rich years with Mary in Italy, the years of Adonais 
and Prometheus Unbound, but of Eton and Oxford, the 
two Harriets, and the breaking of family ties. To those 
acquainted only with the later works, some of these poems — 
with their frequent crudities and stumblings, eighteenth- 
century touches, sentimental echoes from Scott and Camp- 
bell, and imitations of Southey's irregular blank verse — 
will seem strange, sometimes even harsh, but those who 
have read Queen Mab and the other early poems will recog- 
nize both the manner and the matter. To this we must add 
that the Esdaile Notebook is being published 150 years 
after it was planned for publication. A work intended for 
the world of 1813, in an England at war with Napoleon, is 
coming out in the world of the 1960's; a volume by a 
talented beginner is appearing after he has become one 
of England's classic poets. 

Shelley himself had mixed feelings about the volume. 

(3) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

"My poems, will, I fear," he wrote to his publisher friend 
Thomas Hookham, "little stand the criticism even of 
friendship. Some of the later ones have the merit of con- 
veying a meaning in every word, and these all are faithful 
pictures of my feelings at the time of writing them. But 
they are, in a great measure, abrupt and obscure — all 
breathing hatred to government and religion, but I think 
not too openly for publication. One fault they are indis- 
putably exempt from, that of being a volume of fashion- 
able literature." Shelley was aware also of another element 
in the poems. As he wrote in a footnote to one of the 
earliest of them: "These defects I do not alter now, being 
unwilling to offer any outrage to the living portraiture of 
my own mind; bad as it may be pronounced." It would be 
difficult to put the essence of the book more concisely. It 
is a "living portraiture" of Shelley's mind and life during 
his formative period. 

In this Introduction, I shall discuss, first, the poems 
themselves, giving some of the facts about them which I 
have been able to uncover, second, the Notebook as a 
manuscript, and, third, editorial method. 

THE POEMS 

The poems in the Esdaile Notebook fall into two main 
categories — personal and political. The political poems 
are angry poems, the poems of a young aristocrat hurled 
out of the orbit of his class and seeing English society for 
the first time from the viewpoint of such men as Paine 
and Blake — with the eyes of the dispossessed: a society of 
wealth and power concentrated at the apex, and mass 
poverty, churned up by the Industrial Revolution, at the 
base, a society of 11,000,000 of whom 11,000 had the 
franchise, a society torn by conflicting aristocratic and 

(4) 



INTRODUCTION 

commercial interests. The poems attack social injustice, 
political tyranny, and organized religion. They advocate — 
sometimes directly, sometimes by implication — a demo- 
cratic republic and a social order based on economic equal- 
ity, peace, religious tolerance, and civil liberties. The 
personal poems reflect Shelley's boyhood romance with his 
cousin Harriet Grove and his marriage to Harriet West- 
brook. 

Few poets have had a more stormy formative period 
than Shelley. In the fall of 1810 his engagement to Harriet 
Grove was broken. The following spring he was expelled 
from Oxford for writing The Necessity of Atheism. In the 
summer of 1811 he eloped with Harriet Westbrook, then 
went to Dublin and spoke at a mass meeting with Daniel 
O'Connell (the great "Liberator" himself). Later he was 
spied upon in Devon by government agents and tracked 
to Wales. He wrote an impassioned defense of an im- 
prisoned radical publisher, Daniel Isaac Eaton, and a revo- 
lutionary poem, Queen Mab, which later became the Bible 
of Owenites and Chartists. "Tameless and swift and proud" 
he seemed as he looked back at himself some seven years 
later. 

It is easy to misread this period. The "Ariel" caricature 
of the aimless, delicate romantic dies hard. The young 
Shelley was, in fact, neither aimless nor delicate. True, he 
was often unhappy, hurt, and bewildered, but he knew 
where he was going and moved with courage, determina- 
tion, and vigor. When attacked he struck back, often 
savagely. "I go on until I am stopped," he once told 
Trelawny, "and I never am stopped." Certainly, in this 
early period nothing stopped him. Anything that stood in 
his way was swept aside, including both family ties and 
the marriage for which he had broken those ties. 

It is wrong too to regard this early period as one of 

(5) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

ideological radicalism from which he later recovered. The 
views on society, politics, religion, and sex that he de- 
veloped during these years really changed very little. It 
was primarily the manner that changed, as he found that 
his early directness had cut him off from his audience. 
The social message of Prometheus Unbound — although 
not the style or metaphysics — is essentially the same as 
that of Queen Mab. The spirit of the Preface to Hellas 
is as revolutionary as the Letter to Lord Ellenborough. 
The poems in the Esdaile Notebook represent, not a radi- 
cal rash soon to disappear, but the beginnings of a social 
philosophy which animated all the major works in one way 
or another. It is present in the pounding rhythms of indig- 
nation in The Masque of Anarchy, in the attacks on the 
Tory reviewers in Adonais, in the hatred of tyranny and 
parental domination in The Cenci, in the political science 
of A Philosophical View of Reform. 

In the personal poems we find not only the later lyrical 
powers in embryo but also the penchant for psychological 
probing (in Alastor, Julian and Maddalo, Epipsychidion, 
and Adonais). 

Shelley himself regarded his early poems as being 
divided chronologically into "younger poems" and "the 
later ones." As it was in December 1811 that he referred 
to his "younger poems," he must have been speaking of 
those written before, say, the middle of 1811; the com- 
ment on "later ones" was made on January 2, 1813, indi- 
cating that these were written from about mid-181 1 to the 
end of 1812. Thus his marriage to Harriet Westbrook in 
August 1811 can be taken as a convenient dividing line. 
On this basis the last of the "younger poems" would be 
those written at Cwm Elan in Wales just before eloping 
with Harriet; the "later ones" begin in the late fall of 1811 
at Keswick. (His wanderings may be traced on the map on 
page 2.) 

(6) 



INTRODUCTION 

When he compiled the Esdaile Notebook, however, 
Shelley did not adopt a chronological sequence. "Later" 
poems, with a few "younger" ones mixed in, come first, 
ending with "The Voyage"; then some "younger" ones, 
beginning with "A Dialogue"; then "The Retrospect," 
which was written in the summer of 1812, and "The wan- 
dering Jew's soliloquy," which, though it cannot be dated 
exactly, may be an 1812 poem. 

There would, of course, be obvious advantages in re- 
arranging the poems into chronological sequence, and 
doubtless some future editors will do so, but it has seemed 
best on this first publication to present the book as Shelley 
himself compiled it. It might be helpful, for this and other 
reasons, to present a chronological outline. 

1808- i8op (Eton). Shelley entered Eton in 1804 and left 
in 1810 at the age of seventeen (he was born on August 4, 
1792) to go to Oxford. While still at Eton he wrote two 
novels, Zastrozzi: A Romance and 5^. Irvyne: or The 
Rosicrucian. In the fall of 1810 he published a volume of 
poems in collaboration with his sister Elizabeth, Original 
Poetry by "Victor" (Shelley) and "Cazire" (Elizabeth); 
some of these verses date from the Eton period. In the 
winter of 1809 Shelley and his cousin Thomas Medwin 
began an anti-religious poem. The Wandering Jew, which 
seems to have been finished in the spring. The novels are a 
sort of juvenile Gothic with anti-clerical overtones, the 
"Original" poems, with the exception of "The Irishman's 
Song," which laments the wrongs inflicted on Ireland, are 
romantic trivia. Such, in essence, is the Eton record as we 
have it without considering the contents of the Esdaile 
Notebook. What do these poems add? 

First and foremost they add "Henry and Louisa." 
"Henry and Louisa" is a narrative poem of 315 lines, and 
is apparently Shelley's first attempt at a major work. The 
opening stanza runs: 

(7) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Where are the Heroes? sunk in death they lie. 

What toiled they for? titles and wealth and fame. 
But the wide Heaven is now their canopy. 

And legal murderers their loftiest name. 
Enshrined on brass their glory and their shame 

What tho' torn Peace and martyred Freedom see? 

What tho' to most remote posterity 
Their names, their selfishness for ay enscrolled, 
A shuddering world's blood-boltered eyes behold. 

Mocking mankind's unbettered misery? 
Can this perfection give, can valour prove 
One wish for others' bliss, one throb of love . . . 

Certainly no one can claim that this is great poetry, but 
to find it in Shelley's Eton period is something of a revela- 
tion. Both in technical skill and in sustained effort, it is 
far above any other poetry he was then writing. Mostly 
in Spenserian stanza (showing an influence from Spenser 
much earlier than had been suspected), the verse is quite 
skillfully handled for a boy of seventeen. And w^e have to 
remember that this is the poet of Adonais — also in Spen- 
serian stanza — serving his apprenticeship. 

The content is no less surprising, for, as even this first 
stanza shows, Shelley is voicing anti-war and republican 
sentiments as an Eton schoolboy in 1809. 

In another 1809 poem, "I will kneel at thine altar" 
(which is almost the "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" in 
embryo), we find the beginnings of that philosophy of 
love — anticipating, in some respects, Eric Fromm and 
other modern thinkers — which was to become central to 
Shelley's work. It was, in fact, the counterpart of his social 
views: in the existing inegalitarian society, humanity's in- 
stinct for love — which is the essence of life — has been 
thwarted and distorted, but it still exists, and in a future 
society will come to fruition (the theme of Prometheus 

(8) 



INTRODUCTION 

Unbound). Then, and then only, will one be able "to live 
as if to love and live were one." 

We also learn from these two poems that Shelley had, 
by late i8og, been influenced by William Godwin's Po- 
litical Justice. Up to now it had been thought that God- 
winian radicalism made its first appearance in Shelley's 
poetry in Queen Mab (1812-1813). But the influence of 
Political Justice upon these 1809 poems is unmistakable. 

These poems, moreover, give us new insights into 
Shelley's life. We had known, for instance, that his boy- 
hood romance with Harriet Grove began in his Eton years, 
but we had not known how deeply he was attached to her. 
"Henry and Louisa," "To St Irvyne," "To the Moon- 
beam," and other early poems now enable us to trace more 
exactly the course of this romance and its psychological 
impact on the young Shelley. They indicate that, as New- 
man White surmised, the parents attempted to break up 
the affair in the fall of 1809, a year before it was actually 
dissolved. 

18 10 (Eton — Oxford). The year 1810 was, for Shelley, a 
comparatively calm year. He left Eton in the summer and 
was taken to Oxford in the fall by his father, Timothy 
Shelley (later Sir Timothy), who saw him safely settled in 
his old college. University. There Shelley acquired a repu- 
tation as something of a literary phenomenon: Zastrozzi 
had already been published; St. Irvyne and two books of 
poems, the Original Poetry and The Posthumous Frag- 
ments of Margaret Nicholson, appeared in the fall. At 
University College he met a kindred spirit in Thomas 
Jefferson Hogg, later to be his biographer. The engage- 
ment with Harriet Grove had been broken, but Shelley 
had not given up hope. 

To this record the Esdaile Notebook poems add two 
radical poems, "The Monarch's funeral" (in which Shelley 

(9) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

not unhappily anticipates the demise of George III) and 
"To the Emperors of Russia and Austria" (an anti-war 
poem which possibly dates from early 1811), and an agi- 
tated series of poems on the suicide of a girl named Mary, 
of whom we know little more than the poems themselves 
reveal. We find, too, that some of the poems which Shelley 
represented in letters to Hogg in 1811 as having just flowed 
from his pen ("by the midnight moon last night") had 
really been written a year or more earlier. And he similarly 
pulled Hogg's leg in regard to his poem on the bombard- 
ment of Copenhagen, telling him that it was by his sister 
Elizabeth in order to stimulate Hogg's romantic instincts. 

18 1 1 (Cwm Elan — Keswick). The decisive year in 
Shelley's life was 1811, the year in which he was expelled 
from Oxford (in March) and in which he eloped with 
Harriet Westbrook (in August) and was driven from the 
ranks of upper-class society to be turned into a confirmed 
and persecuted rebel. Before the elopement he had spent a 
month at the estate of his cousin John Grove at Cwm Elan, 
near Rhayader in Wales. After the elopement he and 
Harriet (aged sixteen) were joined in Edinburgh by Hogg 
and then by Harriet's older sister, Eliza (aged twenty-nine 
or thirty), at York. After Hogg attempted to seduce Har- 
riet, Shelley whisked her off to Keswick in November and 
remained there for the rest of the year. 

Shelley wrote a great many letters during 1811, some of 
them revealing much about his life and ideas, but his only 
published work was the pamphlet that led to his expulsion 
from Oxford, The Necessity of Atheism. He also worked 
on a novel, Hubert Cauvin, which apparently is now lost, 
and on essays, some of which may have found their way 
into the Notes to Queen Mab. The only poems of 1811 
which have survived are those in the Esdaile Notebook. 

These poems fall into three categories: those written at 

(10) 



INTRODUCTION 

Cwm Elan before the elopement, those written at Keswick 
after the quarrel with Hogg, and "Zeinab and Kathema." 
When "Zeinab and Kathema" was written we do not 
exactly know, but various indications point to the summer 
of 1811. It is, like "Henry and Louisa," a narrative poem 
outlining the adventures of two lovers but really concerned 
with social issues (on both counts also anticipating The Re- 
volt of Islam). It is, however, bolder than "Henry and 
Louisa" both in its narrative and in its message. Here we 
have no gentle Louisa but a woman driven into prostitu- 
tion and brutally executed; her lover commits suicide on 
the gibbet chains from which she is hanging. In place of 
the "republican" attacks on war and tyrants, we find an 
explosive condemnation of society as a cesspool of vice, 
crime, and corruption: 

A universe of horror and decay. 

Gibbets, disease, and wars, and hearts as hard as they. 

We had known from Shelley's letters that he had periods 
of depression at Cwm Elan, but the poems written there — 
"Written at Cwm Elian," "Dark Spirit of the desart rude," 
and "Death-spurning rocks!" — reveal a severe spiritual 
crisis of which we had not known. As the full impact of 
the events of the past months — his rejection by Harriet 
Grove, his expulsion, his alienation from his family — 
struck him he was reduced to suicidal despair. Adding to 
the turmoil was his newly unfolding passion for Harriet 
Westbrook, with whom he had spent some time in London 
before leaving for Cwm Elan. As the weeks passed, the 
whirl of emotions began to center on this new passion and 
the depression receded — indeed, in the final days was 
supplanted by an almost manic exaltation (as a letter of 
August 3 to Hogg on the projected elopement shows). One 
poem, "Oh Harriet, love like mine," copied into the Note- 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

book in Harriet's hand, seems to be a (rather tangled) 
verse letter sent to her in this period by Shelley, promising 
to "save" her and love her forever. 

Much of the Cwm Elan verse is technically poor, a fact 
which strikes a warning note against attempting to date 
Shelley's earlier poetry on stylistic grounds alone. Some of 
the 1811 poetry is worse than some of the 1810; and the 
Mary poems of late 1810 are worse than some written in 
1809. Shelley is developing, but by no means in a simple 
upward curve. We find considerable variation, depending 
on how greatly he was inspired by a particular subject and 
how much time he spent on the composition. The first of 
the Mary poems, for instance, gives the impression of 
having been dashed off abruptly and never revised (at least, 
one hopes that it was not). 

Three of the Keswick poems, "A sabbath Walk," "Pas- 
sion," and "The Crisis," were doubtless among those de- 
scribed by Shelley to Hookham as "abrupt and obscure" 
but "conveying a meaning in every word." The change in 
style is startling: 

When we see Despots prosper in their weakness, 
When we see Falshood triumph in its folly. 
When we see Evil, Tyranny, Corruption, 

Grin, grow and fatten; 
When Virtue toileth thro' a world of sorrow. 
When Freedom dwelleth in the deepest dungeon. 
When Truth, in chains and infamy, bewaileth 

O'er a world's ruin. 

Gone now are all attempts at a luxurious unfolding of 
the Spenserian stanza or at lyrical beauty (even though 
derivative). The style is deliberately harsh, as though the 
young poet wished it to reflect the despotic, war-torn 
world around him. This style was not to last, but it did 
serve to produce in Queen Mab the most revolutionary 

(.2) 



INTRODUCTION 

poem of the age. For the initial turn toward it, Shelley, as 
we shall see, was indebted to Southey, whom he met at 
Keswick. 

Of other poems probably written at Keswick, two are 
addressed to Harriet, "To Harriet ('Never, O never')" and 
"To November." They are, so far as we know, the first 
Shelley wrote to her after their marriage. Both show rather 
more technical dexterity and grace than his earlier lyrics. 
"To November" is a decorative compliment in traditional 

style: 

Whilst thou obscurest the face of day 
Her radiant eyes can gild the gloom, 

but "To Harriet" conveys beneath the conventional pretti- 
ness of the verse a sense of deeper feeling — strangely 
mingled, however, with Shelley's own death-wish fantasies. 
1812 (Dublin — Wales — Devon — London). In Febru- 
ary, Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza left Keswick for Dublin 
by way of Whitehaven (passing through, as the road guides 
show us, Wordsworth's birthplace, Cockermouth). At 
Dublin, in addition to appearing at the mass meeting with 
O'Connell, Shelley published An Address to the Irish 
People and other pamphlets, and became acquainted with 
some of the Irish nationalist leaders. In April he left for 
Wales, where he settled near his beloved Cwm Elan and 
began work upon A Letter to Lord Ellenborough, making 
his most powerful plea for religious and political toler- 
ation: 

The time is rapidly approaching, I hope that you, my 
Lord, may live to behold its arrival, when the Mahometan, 
the Jew, the Christian, the Deist, and the Atheist, will 
live together in one community, equally sharing the 
benefits which arise from its association, and united in 
the bonds of charity and brotherly love. My Lord, you 
have condemned an innocent man: no crime was imputed 

(■3) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

to him — and you sentenced him to torture and imprison- 
ment. I have not addressed this letter to you with the 
hope of convincing you that you have acted wrong. The 
most unprincipled and barbarous of men are not unpre- 
pared with sophisms to prove that they would have acted 
in no other manner, and to show that vice is virtue. But 
I raise my solitary voice to express my disapprobation, so 
far as it goes, of the cruel and unjust sentence you passed 
upon Mr. Eaton — to assert, so far as I am capable of 
influencing, those rights of humanity which you have 
wantonly and unlawfully infringed. 

From Wales, Shelley and Harriet, accompanied as usual 
by Eliza (plus one or two maidservants and one man- 
servant), moved south to Devon, renting a cottage near 
the village of Lynmouth on the west coast. There A Letter 
to Lord Ellenborough was printed and Queen Mab begun, 
and there Shelley's Irish servant, Daniel Healey, was ar- 
rested for distributing the broadside Declaration of Rights, 
which Shelley had written in Dublin. There, too, the 
household acquired for some four months a new inhabitant 
in the person of Shelley's schoolteacher friend Elizabeth 
Hitchener (later to become "the Brown Demon"). 

As a result of Shelley's political activities, the town clerk 
of nearby Barnstable wrote to Lord Sidmouth, the Secre- 
tary of State, and to the Earl of Chichester, the Postmaster 
General. Sidmouth (later to be pilloried in The Masque of 
Anarchy) suggested that Shelley be watched and a list of 
his correspondents compiled. 

Shelley, becoming aware of this surveillance, left Devon 
at the end of August, after a two months' stay, and headed 
back to Wales. In September he became interested in a 
scheme to reclaim land from the sea at Tremadoc by build- 
ing an embankment, and made a trip to London to try to 
raise money for it. There he — at last — met William God- 
win, his future father-in-law, and Thomas Love Peacock, 

(>4) 



INTRODUCTION 

whose poems he had read in Devon. The last in date of the 
poems in the Esdaile Notebook as prepared for publication 
was written as Shelley returned once more to work on the 
embankment project: "On leaving London for Wales." 

It may seem surprising that with all this rushing about 
Shelley was able to write anything, but he produced not 
only the prose works mentioned, but a number of poems 
as well, all of them in the Esdaile Notebook. 

The poems, as usual, complement the prose works. 
Shelley's indignation at the wrongs suffered by the Irish 
is reflected both in ^n Address to the Irish People and in 
"On Robert Emmet's tomb" and "The Tombs," the latter 
a somewhat metaphysical tribute to the fallen Irish patriots 
of the rebellion of 1798: 

All that could sanctify the meanest deeds, 
All that might give a manner and a form 
To matter's speechless elements. 
To every brute and morbid shape 
Of this phantasmal world . . . 

Once more we have the unrhymed Southeyan form of the 
Keswick poems, but Shelley is now learning to infuse into 
it a richer meaning. 

In Dublin, Shelley also wrote a poem hailing the Mexi- 
can revolution of 1812-1813, and very probably also "To 
Liberty," another anti-monarchical poem but one exhibit- 
ing a developing ability to add dignity and beauty to direct- 
ness: 

The pyramids shall fall . . . 

And Monarchsl so shall yel 
Thrones shall rust in the hall 
Of forgotten royalty. 

The only poem we know to have been written in Wales 
during this year is "The Retrospect," which reflects the 

(>5) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

psychological crisis of the previous year. The charming 
(and rather Wordsworthian) "Written on a beautiful day 
in Spring" may also have been written on this 1812 visit. 
(At least there does not seem to be any other "Spring" 
that fits it.) 

Of the two best and longest of the Devon poems, "The 
Voyage" and "A retrospect of Times of Old," only scat- 
tered lines have so far been published. 

"The Voyage" is, next to "Henry and Louisa," the 
longest poem in the book. It is not an easy poem to read — 
and in the Commentary I have attempted an outline — 
but it is one of the most interesting and suggestive. The 
first part appears to be autobiographical, reflecting Shelley's 
own voyagings, both physical and psychological. The sec- 
ond part switches over to a Queen Mab type of attack on 
the press gang and allied social evils. 

"A retrospect of Times of Old" also deals with a Queen 
Mab theme, one which Shelley touched upon in the earlier 
"To Liberty," namely, the passing of former aristocratic 
glories (with the strong hint that a similar fate awaits 
present ones also): 

The mansions of the Kings are tenantless . . . 
Low lie in dust their glory and their shame. 
No tongue survives their victorious Deeds to bless, 
No tongue with execration blasts their fame. 

The "Ozymandias" theme has begun. 

181^-181^. From Wales, Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza (the 
"Brown Demon" having been shed in London) went once 
more to Ireland, but this time on a brief visit, and by 
early April they were back in London. By late May, Queen 
Mab was in the press and the Esdaile Notebook project 
had been abandoned. In June, Shelley and Harriet's first 
child, Eliza lanthe, was born. The following spring 

(.6) 



INTRODUCTION 

(1814) the marriage began to break up; in August, Shelley 
eloped with Mary Godwin; in the fall Shelley and Harriet's 
second child, Charles Bysshe, was born; and Shelley con- 
tinued occasionally to visit Harriet during this year and 
the next. In November 1816, Harriet committed suicide 
(apparently after an unfortunate love affair), throwing her- 
self into the Serpentine in Hyde Park. 

After Shelley had given up hope of publishing, the Note- 
book passed to Harriet, and in its final pages we find 
two sonnets copied in by Shelley, one to Harriet and one 
to the baby, lanthe, and a number of poems in Harriet's 
hand. One of these, "To Harriett ('Thy look of love')," 
was written at the time of the break-up of the marriage, 
and in the Commentary to the poem I discuss its signifi- 
cance in relation to that event. Another, dated 1815, 
"Full many a mind," is apparently a poem by Harriet her- 
self. 

THE MANUSCRIPTS 

The story of the various manuscripts of these poems and 
their relation to the Esdaile Notebook is a story in 
itself. It begins with a letter to Elizabeth Hitchener 
in December 1811: "I think I shall also make a selec- 
tion of my younger poems for publication." A few 
weeks later, while Shelley was preparing to leave for 
Dublin, she was informed that "My Poems will be printed 
there," that is, in Dublin. There is no reference to the 
"Poems" in letters from Dublin, but that Shelley did take 
them with him and give them to a printer we learn from a 
letter of Harriet Shelley's in June 1812 to her Irish friend 
Catherine Nugent: "As to the poems I have no idea how 
and when they will come out. The printers are very slow 
in their operations." The reason for the slowness appears 

(>7) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

in August: "His printer refuses to go on with his poems 
until he is paid. Now such a demand is seldom made, as 
printers are never paid till the profits arising from the 
sale of the work come in, and Percy agreed with him to 
this effect, and as long as we staid in Dublin he wore the 
mask which is now taken off." The manuscripts of the 
"younger poems," then, were in a print shop in Dublin 
and the printer refused to give them up until Shelley paid 
him. And if he was demanding payment he must have 
done some work. Some of the poems, then, must have been 
set up in type and the printer would neither "go on" with 
the rest nor give them up until he was paid for what he 
had done. 

By fall the situation had become desperate: "Percy says 
he wishes you to go to Stockdale's, and get all his manu- 
script poems and other pieces. I am afraid you will be 
obliged to use a little manoeuvre to get them. In the first 
place, you can say you wish to look at them, and then you 
may be able to steal them away from him. I leave it all 
to you." Behind this desperation must lurk the fact that 
Shelley did not have copies of the poems with him and that 
his only manuscripts, either for most or for all of them, 
were those in Dublin. 

Next comes a letter to Thomas Hookham on Decem- 
ber 17: "I write hastily again today because I hear from 
Ireland of my MSS." What Shelley had heard we do not 
know, but that his informant was Catherine Nugent ap- 
pears from a letter to her from Harriet on January 16, 
1813: "Eliza and Percy desire their kind regards to you, 
with many thanks for your embassy to Stockdale, who will 
hear from Mr. S. soon." 

It is not clear from these letters whether Shelley had re- 
ceived his poems or not. My impression is that he had not. 
The securing of the poems had been such an important 

(.8) 



INTRODUCTION 

matter in the correspondence that one would expect some 
definite and enthusiastic announcement of their receipt 
rather than the noncommittal (via Harriet) "many thanks 
for your embassy to Stockdale." Nor do letters to Hookham 
on January 2, January 26, January 31 (from Harriet), or 
February 19 state that Shelley has the manuscripts although 
they refer to the project. The first time that Shelley defi- 
nitely indicates possession of the poems is in a letter to 
Hookham in March (the letter is undated but obviously 
follows closely after one by Harriet on March 12): "I have 
many other Poems which shall also be sent." This letter 
was written from Dublin, the previous ones from Wales, 
and this fact may be significant. Shelley left Tremadoc 
early in March for a return trip to Ireland. This trip has 
usually been attributed to wanderlust, but perhaps he took 
it in order to retrieve his manuscripts. He borrowed £120 
before leaving Wales, which may explain how he over- 
came Stockdale's resistance. 

So much for the "younger poems" and their manuscripts. 

After writing these "younger poems" Shelley composed 
others (for instance "The Voyage" in the present volume, 
which is dated "Devonshire — August 1812") and began 
work on Queen Mab. On December 17, 1812, he told 
Hookham that he was "preparing a Volume of Minor 
Poems," and this volume, as the correspondence indicates, 
was to contain both the "younger" and the later poems, 
the "younger" ones from the Dublin manuscripts (when 
he got them), the later ones from manuscripts he had with 
him. Hookham apparently evinced interest in this project, 
for Shelley next (January 2, 1813) described the "later" 
poems, commenting, as we have seen, that the volume was 
not one of "fashionable literature." 

From this point on, the fortunes of the projected volume 
of "Minor Poems" become entangled with those of Queen 

(>9) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Mab. On January 26 he informed Hookham: "I expect to 
have Queen Mab, and the other Poems finished by March. 
Queen Mab will be in ten cantos and contain about 2800 
lines. The other poems probably contain as much more." 
In February Queen Mab was "finished and transcribed" 
and he was "preparing the notes"; and he added: "You 
will receive it with the other poems. I think that the whole 
should form one volume; but of that we can speak here- 
after." Shelley, then, intended to produce one book con- 
taining Queen Mab, its Notes, and the "other Poems." In 
March, 1813, when he sent the completed manuscript of 
Queen Mab to Hookham, he still adhered to this scheme: 
"The notes are preparing and shall be forwarded before 
the completion of the printing of the Poem. I have many 
other Poems which shall also be sent. The notes will be 
long, philosophical, and Anti Christian. This will be un- 
noticed in a Note. Do not let the title page be printed be- 
fore the body of the Poems. I have a motto to introduce 
from Shakespeare, and a Preface." The word "Poems" here 
cannot refer to Queen Mab alone, yet its juxtaposition 
with his comments on Queen Mab indicates that Shelley 
is not thinking only of the "other Poems." Presumably the 
title page he speaks of would have read "Queen Mab and 
other Poems" or something: similar. 

The next we hear of Queen Mab is in a letter from 
Harriet to Catherine Nugent on May 21: "Mr. Shelley 
continues perfectly well, and his Poem of 'Queen Mab' is 
begun [apparently, to be printed], tho' it must not be pub- 
lished under pain of death, because it is too much against 
every existing establishment. It is to be privately dis- 
tributed to his friends, and some copies sent over to Amer- 
ica." And that the book was actually out in the summer 
of 1813 we learn from Hogg. 

Exactly what happened between the middle of March 

(20) 



INTRODUCTION 

and May 2 1 we are not sure. We know that Hookham did 
not publish Queen Mab, for it was privately printed by 
Shelley himself; and there was a tradition in the Hook- 
ham family that he and Shelley had quarreled over the 
poem. What of the "other Poems"? 

In his letter of February 19 Shelley had stated that 
Hookham would receive Queen Mab, its Notes, and the 
"other Poems" all together. In this mid-March letter, 
however, he sends him Queen Mab only and promises 
the Notes and "other Poems." As the Notes appeared 
in the Queen Mab volume, and that volume was in the 
press by May 21, they must have been sent to Hookham 
not very long after the poem itself, say by late March or 
mid-April; and the "other Poems" were most probably 
sent at about the same time, for all three items — Queen 
Mab, the Notes, and the "other Poems" — were to ap- 
pear in one volume. Presumably, then, what Hookham 
turned down was not only Queen Mab but the whole 
project. As Queen Mab was in the press by May 21, being 
privately printed by Shelley, and the "other Poems" were 
never published, Hookham must have rejected the "other 
Poems" by May 21 at the latest. Shelley had himself ap- 
parently given up on them. 

What is the connection between these various manu- 
scripts and the Esdaile Notebook? Let us turn to the 
Notebook itself. When we examine it, we see that up 
through "The wandering Jew's soliloquy" cumulative 
line counts are appended to the poems, showing a grand 
total of 2822 lines at the end. As the usual reason for mak- 
ing such a line count is to give an estimate to a printer, 
we can assume that this section of the Notebook (running 
from page 37 to page 162 in the present volume) was 
compiled for publication. Following this section, as we 
have seen, there come two poems (sonnets) in Shelley's 

(2.) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

hand, and five poems in Harriet's hand, one of which is 
not by Shelley and probably by Harriet. For these poems 
there are no line counts. The first two were apparently 
added to the Notebook in the fall of 1813; two, at least, 
of the later ones, sometime in 1815. These poems, then, 
were placed in the Notebook — for sentimental and other 
reasons — after Shelley had given up hope of publication. 
Let us pause here to look at some vital statistics: 

Total number of lines of poetry 2925 

Total number of lines in numbered section 2774 

Total number of lines in unnumbered section 151 

Unnumbered section, lines in Shelley's hand 28 

Unnumbered section, lines in Harriet's hand 123 

Shelley's own total for the line-numbered section, we 
might note, included lines on four pages now torn out, 
did not include a few other lines apparently added later, 
and, as we shall see, contains at least one mistake in addi- 
tion. 

It is clear, from this evidence, that the Notebook is 
really two entities. The first section, with its roughly 2800 
lines, was prepared with the problems of publication in 
mind; the second, of 151 lines, is simply a keepsake 
section in which poems were copied in later without any 
connection with plans for publication. 

Both the late dates at which the keepsake poems were 
entered and their placement in the volume show that they 
can have had no connection with the manuscripts Shelley 
was preparing for Hookham. 

There is, however, obviously a connection, and a very 
close one, between these manuscripts and the line-num- 
bered section of the Notebook, the first section. (1) Shel- 
ley informed Hookham on January 26, 1813, that the 

(28) 



INTRODUCTION 

"other poems" would "probably" contain about 2800 
lines. According to Shelley's calculations, the line-num- 
bered section of the Notebook contained 2822 lines. (2) As 
we have seen, Shelley spoke of the proposed volume as 
containing "younger poems" and "later" ones. This is 
the division of the Esdaile Notebook. (3) In April 1812 
Shelley wrote to Elizabeth Kitchener: "I have written 
some verses on Robert Emmett, which you shall see, and 
which I will insert in my book of Poems," The Poem on 
Robert Emmet is in the Notebook. (4) Shelley included 
"Falshood and Vice" in the Queen Mab volume with 
the comment that "This opportunity is perhaps the only 
one that will ever occur of rescuing it from oblivion." 
"Falshood and Vice" is in the Esdaile Notebook. (5) Shel- 
ley's description of some of the "later" poems as "abrupt 
and harsh — all breathing hatred to government and 
religion," fits, both in style and content. "The Voyage," 
which he dated August 1812, and other "later" poems in 
the Esdaile Notebook. (6) Shelley has a reference on the 
verso of the final leaf of the Notebook (see below, pages 
329, 309) to Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire that is apparently connected with a 
Note to Queen Mab (which quotes Gibbon). Shelley in- 
formed Hookham in February and March 1813 that he 
was working on both the Notes to Queen Mab and the 
"other poems." 

This evidence is, it seems to me, sufficient to establish 
that the poems in the line-numbered section of the Esdaile 
Notebook contain either all or most of the "younger" and 
"later" poems which Shelley writes of in 1811 and 1812 
and which he put together for publication. 

If we regard this connection as established, certain 
further deductions can be made. For instance, it is prob- 
able that the "juvenilia" part of the Notebook — begin- 

(23) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

ning with "A Dialogue" — roughly corresponds to the 
"younger poems" and to the manuscripts held by the 
printer in Dublin. The fact that Shelley was able to come 
so close in his estimate of the total number of lines on 
January 26, 1813, may indicate that he had the "younger 
poems" back by that time. Or it could be that he had 
totaled the poems he had with him, which probably came 
to more than half, and estimated the rest. In view of 
the fact that he does not mention actual possession of the 
manuscripts until March, when he was in Ireland, the 
second hypothesis seems to me more likely. And finally, 
the comment on "Falshood and Vice" in the Queen Mab 
volume substantiates the view that the poems sent to Hook- 
ham had been turned down by the time of the printing of 
Queen Mab. 

Was the Esdaile Notebook the actual manuscript Shel- 
ley sent to Hookham for publication? This is most unlikely, 
for, in the first place, one would normally send loose 
sheets rather than a notebook to a printer. Secondly, 
this particular notebook would have been most unsuitable 
for a printer. It is comparatively small and nearly every 
page of writing is crowded, leaving almost no margins, 
so that a printer would have had little space in which to 
mark up the copy. We might note, too, that as Stockdale 
had apparently set up some of the early poems in Dublin, 
Shelley might have had proof sheets of them. If so, he 
would be likely to send these to Hookham rather than 
manuscript. 

The Notebook, then, was apparently a copy taken from 
the manuscripts sent to Hookham. Why did Shelley make 
such a copy? There seem to be two possible answers: it 
was compiled as a gift for Harriet; or it was compiled be- 
cause Shelley's experience with the Dublin printer had 
convinced him that he should have a copy, and this copy 
was later given to Harriet. Of these, the second seems the 



INTRODUCTION 

more likely. That the poems were not originally copied 
as a gift for Harriet is indicated by their casual punctua- 
tion, lack of apostrophes, and so on, which stand in sharp 
contrast to the two poems which apparently were copied 
into the book for her — in the second section — namely, 
a sonnet to lanthe and one to Harriet, both of which are 
fully punctuated. The probability is that the book was 
originally compiled as a guarantee against loss of manu- 
scripts. If this was indeed Shelley's motive, the poems must 
have been copied before the manuscripts were sent to 
Hookham — that is, by about the middle of April 1813 
or earlier. The line count that Shelley made would seem 
to support this supposition, for such a count, as we have 
noted, would normally be made to provide an estimate for 
a printer. 

Against this hypothesis several specific objections can be 
raised; none of them, however, seems insuperable. In the 
first place, Shelley leaves two stanzas and part of another 
blank in one poem, "Henry and Louisa," As I suggest in 
the Commentary, this may mean that he had mislaid a 
page or so of the manuscript from which he was copying. 
Secondly, the final stanza of another poem, "To the Lover 
of Mary," has been added later. It is written with a thinner 
pen and a different shade of ink and is not included in the 
line count either for this poem or in the final total. The 
line count following the preceding stanza, however, has 
been crossed out as though Shelley intended to make a 
new count but failed to do so. Perhaps, then, he wrote 
the stanza in shortly after the copying and simply forgot 
to add it to the later line counts. Or perhaps he wrote it 
in considerably later; if so, he may have kept the Note- 
book with him and made changes after he had sent the 
manuscripts off to Hookham. 

Thirdly, there is some indication that Shelley actually 
composed a footnote to "To Mary I" as he was copying 

(25) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

the poem. If so, presumably he added or intended to add 
this footnote to a manuscript to be sent for publication. 

Finally, Shelley made occasional stylistic and creative 
changes in the poems. Some of these are in ink of about the 
same shade as the poems as a whole, but most of them are 
in a different, usually darker shade. It may be assumed 
that the alterations in the same shade of ink were made 
when Shelley was copying the poems into the Notebook; 
the others were made later. The latter changes, the ones 
usually in darker ink, may again indicate that Shelley 
worked on the Notebook after he had sent his manuscripts 
to Hookham. In fact, a number of them, in widely scat- 
tered places, are in a particularly black shade of ink and 
perhaps indicate a general revision of the Notebook at one 
time. The changes made in ink of about the same shade 
apparently represent ideas that occurred to Shelley as he 
was copying. These, too, he presumably added or intended 
to add to a manuscript to be sent for publication. 

All these objections, then, can be answered on the basis 
of the hypothesis that the Esdaile Notebook represents a 
copy originally made as insurance against loss of the orig- 
inal manuscripts (perhaps Shelley mailed them from Ire- 
land) if we assume that Shelley (a) mislaid one or two of his 
original sheets, (b) made some changes as he went along, (c) 
perhaps made a few further changes after the original 
manuscripts had been mailed. 

The evidence, as we have seen, indicates that Shelley 
had completed the line-numbered section of the Esdaile 
Notebook by the middle of April 1813 and probably be- 
fore. When did he begin it? It is possible that he had 
begun when he informed Hookham in December 1812 
that "he was preparing a Volume of Minor poems." (The 
word "Volume" here may mean that he had a manuscript 
volume in mind as well as a future published volume.) 

(26) 



INTRODUCTION 

This hypothesis receives some support from the arrange- 
ment of the poems in the line-numbered section, which is 
that of a group of mainly "later" poems occupying the 
first half and a group of mainly "younger" poems occupy- 
ing the second half. The break comes after a run of poems 
written in the summer of 1812 in Devon, the last of which 
is "The Voyage." This is followed by "A Dialogue," which 
Shelley has dated in the title "1809"; then comes a series 
of similarly dated early poems. Shelley obviously added the 
dates so that this group would stand out as a kind of juve- 
nilia section. But he did not have these "younger" poems 
with him in December 1812, for they were still in Dublin. 
It may be, then, that Shelley started copying with what he 
did have with him — that is, the "later" poems. On the 
other hand, of course, he may have intended to place the 
"later" poems first; in this case he may not have started 
the actual compilation of the Notebook until shortly be- 
fore he sent the poems to Hookham. It is not possible, then, 
to say exactly when Shelley began the Notebook, except 
that it was probably not much earlier than his announce- 
ment to Hookham on December 17, 1812, that he was "pre- 
paring" the volume of "Minor Poems" and probably not 
much later than his statement in mid-March 1813 that the 
"Poems" would be "sent" to Hookham in the near future. 

The poems in the keepsake section, beyond the num- 
bered section, were probably added, as we have noted, be- 
tween the fall of 1813 and sometime in 1815. The first two, 
the sonnets, are in Shelley's hand; the last five in Harriet's. 

The dedicatory poem, "To Harriet ('Whose is the love')" 
is a special problem in itself. Let us look first at the place- 
ment of this poem in the Notebook. The first three leaves 
of the Notebook are blank. Then comes the dedication, on 
the recto of leaf four. The verso of leaf four is blank. On 
the recto of leaf five is the title, Poems, followed by the 

(27) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

first of the "Poems" ("A sabbath Walk"). Leaf five is the 
leaf following the binding string, which makes a natural 
break and opening point for the volume. It looks as though 
Shelley started to compile the volume on this leaf. 

Next we might note that the lines of the dedicatory poem 
are not included in Shelley's running line counts, which 
follow each poem and were totaled as they went along. The 
final total, however (following "The wandering Jew's solil- 
oquy"), appears as follows: 2796 

16 



2822 
As the dedicatory poem has sixteen lines and no other six- 
teen lines are omitted, the "16" here must refer to this 
poem (regardless of the mistake in addition). We must 
note also that the whole of the sum appears to have been 
written at the same time. It is all in ink of the same shade 
and thickness, and the numbers are of the same size. The 
"16," then, was almost certainly not added later, but at the 
same time as the "2796." 

To this let us add one other fact. At the top of the leaf 
56, verso, Shelley has put the page number 104. For this 
page to be 104 he must have begun his count with the first 
poem following the dedication. If he had begun with the 
dedication the page number would be 106 (assuming that 
he counted correctly). 

From these facts we can deduce that Shelley began his 
copying not with the dedication but with the body of the 
poems; that the dedication was probably not in the Note- 
book when he got to his page 104; and, furthermore, that 
it either was in the book by the time he got to "The wan- 
dering Jew's soliloquy" or was written in immediately 
after that poem and before he made the final line count. 
It seems probable that both poems, the dedication at the 
beginning and "The wandering Jew's soliloquy" at the 

(28) 



INTRODUCTION 

end of the line-numbered section, were added at about the 
same time, that is, at the time of the final compilation of 
that section. 

In regard to this dedication, however, one other fact 
must be noted, namely, that it appears also — though in a 
somewhat different version — as the dedicatory poem of 
Queen Mab. As Queen Mab was in the press by May 21 
and out a month or so later, the Queen Mab version must 
have been completed by June 1812 at the latest (allowing 
for the addition of prefatory matter after the body of the 
book had been set up). 

Which dedication was written first, that for the Esdaile 
Volume or that for Queen Mab? The indication is that the 
Esdaile version came first. The last two lines of the third 
stanza in both versions have the same wording: 

Thine are these early wilding flowers, 
The' garlanded by me. 

The phrase "early wilding flowers" is appropriate for the 
Notebook poems, some of which were written some years 
previously, but it is not appropriate for Queen Mab, which 
is one long poem and had been composed in the months 
immediately preceding its publication. It looks as though 
these lines had been carelessly left over from the Esdaile 
version. We might note also that the Queen Mab version is 
somewhat better verse. The probability is that the Esdaile 
dedication was written for the originally planned volume 
which was to contain both the Esdaile poems and Queen 
Mab. 

When did Shelley give the volume to Harriet? We can- 
not give an exact date, but the implication of the sonnets 
to her and lanthe, apparently copied into the book in 
September 1813, is that the book was then considered to 
be Harriet's. Possibly Shelley gave it to her shortly after 

(29) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

he heard that the poems had been turned down by Hook- 
ham and, as he indicates in the comment on "Falshood 
and Vice" in Qiieen Mab, had despaired of their being 
published. 

Whenever Harriet received the volume, it is apparent 
from its subsequent history that she kept it with her after 
Shelley's elopement with Mary Godwin in July 1814, That 
she had it in October 1814 seems to be indicated in a re- 
quest that Shelley made to her in a letter of that month: 
"If you could copy for me & send me one poem called an 
Indian Tale I wish to have it." Although there is no poem 
in the manuscript book with the title "An Indian Tale," 
the reference, as Roger Ingpen argued when editing this 
letter, is probably to "Zeinab and Kathema," the hero and 
heroine of which come from Cashmire. Certainly Harriet 
had the book the next year, for, as we have noted, the final 
pages contain two poems in her hand dated 1815. 

EDITORIAL METHOD 

Few who read the poets of the past in modern editions 
realize how much work — often by generations of scholars 
— has gone into their production. But when one is faced 
with a manuscript which has not previously been edited, 
he is only too aware of it. All the elementary facts of text, 
dating, and so on which one tends to take for granted be- 
come all-important. Without these, the critic and biogra- 
pher cannot proceed. 

In editing the Esdaile Notebook I have placed the em- 
phasis upon these fundamentals. The only way to establish 
them is by patient sifting of evidence. For some of these 
poems, for instance, no clue whatsoever to a date appeared 
at a first, dismayed reading, but, usually, when letters and 
other pieces of evidence were brought to bear, patterns 

(30) 



INTRODUCTION 

began to emerge. In such matters the adage about one fool 
with a fact being able to defeat an army of wise men has 
particular pertinence. One can spin elaborate (and often 
convincing) theories about the life, views, and skill of an 
author in one period only to have someone discover that 
the works on which the theory is based were written in 
another. 

In editing Shelley's manuscripts for Shelley and his 
Circle I chose to adopt a virtually literal text, one which 
presented the manuscript, with all its misspellings, slips 
of the pen, unique punctuation (or lack of it), crossed-out 
words, inserted words, and so on, preserved intact. For the 
Esdaile Notebook I have chosen differently. The text is 
what one might call a minimum clean-up type. What this 
is I have described in the introduction to the Textual 
Notes, but I might hasten to allay rising fears by stating 
that Shelley's wording has not been changed and that what 
changes have been made — for instance, in correcting spell- 
ing and adding capitals — are recorded in the Textual 
Notes. 

Different kinds of texts serve different purposes. Shelley 
and his Circle contains a recording, for scholarly purposes, 
of manuscripts in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library — 
from which other editors can depart as they see fit. The 
Esdaile Notebook, on the other hand, is a first edition. As 
such, the text should approximate what Shelley himself 
would have presented had he published the work (as he 
did Queen Mab). The text is, in places, difficult enough 
even after a minimum of punctuation has been added, 
for Shelley tended to delight in complexities of syntax. 

As has already been noted, Shelley had other manu- 
scripts of these poems; in fact, all the poems in the Note- 
book originated in such manuscripts. Shelley, however, 
did not merely copy; he could not resist making changes 

(3>) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

and additions as he went along. These, too, are recorded 
in the Textual Notes. 

The final piece of critical apparatus is the Commen- 
taries. Here an editor must choose between a series of 
footnotes with reference to particular points in each poem 
or a general commentary on the poem with particular 
references included in it. There are obvious advantages 
and disadvantag^es in both methods. Footnotes make it 
easier to pinpoint particular problems but more difficult 
to establish basic general matters: date, over-all meaning, 
relation to other works, place in biographical or literary 
development. For first publication it has seemed that these 
are the most important things to try to establish. 

The editorial matter, then, consists of a Biblographical 
Description, Textual Notes, and Commentaries. We have 
also added a number of tables — with comments — show- 
ing what has and has not been previously published from 
the volume. These units have been placed at the back so 
that the poems may be read without the intrusion of edi- 
torial matter. 

I should like in conclusion to mention the copybook 
made by Shelley's biographer Edward Dowden, which is 
referred to in the Foreword and elsewhere. Dowden ob- 
tained access to the Esdaile Notebook in 1884 and copied 
it in two notebooks, word for word, in a remarkably exact 
and literal text. The second of these notebooks appears 
to have been lost. The first, which is in The Carl H. Pforz- 
heimer Library, ends, about halfway through, with "The 
Voyage." This text has been of considerable help in making 
our transcript. Dowden transcribed on right-hand pages 
only; on the left-hand pages he sometimes made comments 
on dating and sources. Wherever these have proved useful 
— even if only as starting points — they have been noted in 
the Commentaries. 

(32) 



INTRODUCTION 

The portrait of Shelley which forms the frontispiece to 
the present volume was convincingly argued by Newman I. 
White in an appendix to his Shelley (1940) to be the long- 
lost water-color sketch of Shelley by Edward EUerker 
Williams. After presenting his evidence White added: 
"More objective proof might have been forthcoming 
through an expert comparison of the water-colour with 
Williams's authenticated self-portrait in the British Mu- 
seum. This examination had already been arranged when 
the outbreak of the present war forced its indefinite post- 
ponement." In October 1963 we wrote to the British Mu- 
seum to ask whether they could compare the portrait as 
reproduced in White's Shelley with the self-portrait by 
Williams. We received a reply from Mr. Edward Croft- 
Murray, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the Museum, 
stating that certain techniques employed are "very similar 
in both cases" and that there is "a very good case for the 
two drawings being by the same man." This opinion, 
added to White's evidence, seems to me to put the matter 
beyond reasonable doubt. The portrait is not so polished 
(or idealized) as that by Amelia Curran but it probably 
conveys a better concept of what Shelley actually looked 
like. 

K. N. C. 



(33) 



tS'^iS'^^^iS'^^^sS'^^OiS- 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 
POEMS 



'^iS'^^^^CiS'Ct^^iS'CiS'^ 



To Harriet 

Whose is the love that gleaming thro' the world 
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? 
Whose is the warm and partial praise, 
Virtue's most sweet reward? 

Whose looks gave grace to the majestic theme, 5 

The sacred, free and fearless theme of truth? 
Whose form did I gaze fondly on 
And love mankind the more? 

Harriet! on thine: — thou wert my purer soul, 
Thou wert the inspiration to my song; lo 

Thine are these early wilding flowers, 
Tho' garlanded by me. 

Then twine the withering wreath-buds round thy brow; 
Its bloom may deck their pale and faded prime. 

Can they survive without thy love 15 

Their wild and moody birth? 



(37) 



Poems. 



A sabbath Walk 



Sweet are the stilly forest glades: 

Imbued with holiest feelings there 

I love to linger pensively 
And court seclusion's smile. 
This mountain labyrinth of loveliness 5 

Is sweet to me even when the frost has torn 
All save the ivy clinging to the rocks 
Like friendship to a friend's adversity! 

Yes, in my soul's devotedness, 

I love to linger in the wilds. lo 

I have my God, and worship him, 

O vulgar souls, more ardently 

Than ye the Almighty fiend 
Before whose throne ye kneel. 

'Tis not the soul pervading all, 15 

'Tis not the fabled cause that framed 

The everlasting orbs of Heaven 
And this eternal earth. 
Nor the cold Christians' blood-stain'd King of Kings, 
Whose shrine is in the temple of my heart; so 

'Tis that divinity whose work and self 
Is harmony and wisdom, truth and love, 

Who in the forests' rayless depth 

And in the cities' wearying glare, 

In sorrow, solitude and death 25 

(38) 



A SABBATH WALK 

Accompanies the soul 

Of him who dares be free. 

It is a lovely winter's day. 

Its brightness speaks of Deity 

Such as the good man venerates 30 

Such as the Poet loves. 
Ah! softly o'er the quiet of the scene 
A pealing harmony is felt to rise. 
The village bells are sweet but they denote 
That spirits love by the clock, and are devout 35 

All at a stated hour. The sound 

Is sweet to sense but to the heart 

It tells of worship insincere, 

Creeds half believed, the ear that bends 

To custom, prejudice and fear, 40 

The tongue that's bought to speak, 
The heart that's hired to feel. 

But to the man sincerely good 
Each day will be a sabbath day 

Consigned to thoughts of holiness 45 

And deeds of living love. 
The God he serves requires no cringing creed. 
No idle prayers, no senseless mummeries. 
No gold, no temples and no hireling priests. 
The winds, the pineboughs and the waters make 50 

Its melody. The hearts of all 
The beings it pervadeth form 
A temple for its purity; 
The wills of those that love the right 

Are offerings beyond 55 

Thanksgivings, prayers and gold. 

(39) 



^^tS>O^CiS>OtS'^!S'OiS>OiS> 



The Crisis 



When we see Despots prosper in their weakness, 
When we see Falshood triumph in its folly, 
When we see Evil, Tyranny, Corruption, 

Grin, grow and fatten; 
When Virtue toileth thro' a world of sorrow, 5 

When Freedom dwelleth in the deepest dungeon. 
When Truth, in chains and infamy, bewaileth 

O'er a world's ruin; 
When Monarchs laugh upon their thrones securely, 
Mocking the woes which are to them a treasure, lo 

Hear the deep curse, and quench the Mother's hunger 

In her child's murder; 
Then may we hope the consummating hour 
Dreadfully, sweetly, swiftly is arriving. 
When light from Darkness, peace from desolation, 15 

Bursts unresisted; 
Then mid the gloom of doubt and fear and anguish 
The votaries of virtue may raise their eyes to Heaven 
And confident watch till the renovating day-star 

Gild the horizon. 20 



(40) 



Passion 

(to the 



Fair are thy berries to the dazzled sight. 
Fair is thy chequered stalk o£ mingling hues. 

And yet thou dost conceal 

A deadly poison there 

Uniting good and ill. 5 

Art thou not like a lawyer whose smooth face 
Dost promise good, while hiding so much ill? 

Ah! no. The semblance even 

Of goodness lingereth not 

Within that hollow eye. lo 

Art thou the tyrant whose unlovely brow 
With rare and glittering gems is contrasted? 

No — thou mayst kill the body, 

He withers up the soul; 

Sweet thou when he is nigh. 15 

Art thou the wretch whose cold and sensual soul 
His hard-earned mite tears from the famished hind 

Then says that God hath willed 

Many to toil and groan 

That few may boast at ease? 20 

Art thou the slave whose mercenary sword 
Stained with an unoffending brother's blood 
Deeper yet shews the spot 

(4>) 



PASSION 

Of cowardice, whilst the 

Who wears it talks of courage? 25 

Ah no! else while I gaze upon thy bane 
I should not feel unmingled with contempt 

This awful feeling rise: 

As if I stood at night 

In some weird ruin's shade. 30 

Thou art like youthful passion's quenchless fire 
Which in some unsuspecting bosom glows 

So wild, so beautiful. 

Possessing wondrous power 

To wither or to warm. 35 



Essence of Virtue, blushing virtues' prime. 
Bright bud of Truth, producing Falshood's fruit, 

Freedom's own soul that binds 

The human will in chains 

Indissolubly fast; 40 

Prime source of all that's lovely, good, and great. 
Debasing man below the meanest brute. 

Spring of all healing streams. 

Yet deadlier than the gall 

Blackening a monarch's heart. 45 

Why art thou thus, O Passion? Custom's chains 
Have bound thee from thine Heaven-directed flight 

Or thou wouldst never thus 

Bring misery to man. 

Uniting good and ill. 50 



(42) 



^IS'^IS'OIS'^^^^O^^^C 



To Harriet 



Never, O never, shall yonder Sun 

Thro' my frame its warmth diffuse 
When the heart that beats in its faithful breast 
Is untrue, fair girl, to thee; 

Nor the beaming moon 5 

On its nightly voyage 
Shall visit this spirit with softness again, 

When its soaring hopes 

And its fluttering fears 
Are untrue — fair girl to thee! lo 

O Ever while this frail brain has life 

Will it thrill to thy love-beaming gaze. 
And whilst thine eyes with affection gleam 
It will worship the spirit within. 

And when death comes ^5 

To quench their fire, 
A sorrowful rapture their dimness will shed 

As I bind me tight 

With thine auburn hair 
And die, as I lived, with thee. 20 



(43) 



0«iO£&Oi&C«50«&Oi&0«&0 



Falshood and Vice 

a Dialogue 

Whilst Monarchs laughed upon their thrones 

To hear a famished nation's groans, 

And hugged the wealth, wrung from the woe 

That makes their eyes and veins o'erflow, 

Those thrones high built upon the heaps 5 

Of bones where frenzied Famine sleeps. 

Where slavery with her scourge of iron 

Stained in mankind's unheeded gore. 
And war's mad fiends the scene environ 

Mingling with shrieks a drunken roar, lo 

There Vice and Falshood took their stand 
High raised above the unhappy land. 

FALSHOOD 

Brother, arise from the dainty fare 

Which thousands have toil'd and bled to bestow, 
A finer feast for thy hungry ear 15 

Is the news that I bring of human woe. 

VICE 

And secret one, what hast thou done 

To compare in thy tumid pride with me, 

I, whose career thro' the blasted year 

Has been marked by ruin and misery? 20 

FALSHOOD 

What have I done! I've torn the robe 
From baby Truth's unsheltered form 

(44) 



FALSHOOD AND VICE 

And round the desolated globe 25 

Worn safely the bewildering charm. 
My tyrant-slaves to a dungeon floor 

Have bound the dauntless innocent. 
And streams of fertilizing gore 

Flow from her bosom's hideous rent 

Which this unfailing dagger gave . . . 
I dread that blood. No more. This day 30 

Is ours tho' her eternal ray 

Must shine upon our grave . . . 
Yet know, proud Vice, had I not given 
To thee the mask I stole from Heaven, 
Thy shape of ugliness and fear 35 

Had never gained admission here. 

VICE 

And know that had I disdained to toil 
But sate in my noisome cave the while 
And ne'er to these hateful sons of Heaven, 

GOLD, MONARCHY Or MURDER givCU, 4° 

Hadst thou with all thine art essayed 

One of thy games then to have played, 

With all thine overweening boast 

Falshood, I tell thee thou had lost! — 

But wherefore this dispute . . . we tend 45 

Fraternal to one common end. 

In this cold grave beneath my feet 

Will our hopes, our fears and our labours meet. 

FALSHOOD 

I brought my daughter religion on Earth. 

She smothered its sweetest buds in their birth 50 

But dreaded Reason's eye severe 

So the crocodile slunk off slily in fear 

(45) 



FALSHOOD AND VICE 

And loosed her bloodhounds from the den. 

They started from dreams of slaughtered men 

And by the light of her poison eye 55 

Did her work o'er the wide Earth frightfully. 

The deathy stench of her torches' flare. 

Fed with human fat, polluted the air. 

The curses, the shrieks, the ceaseless cries 

Of the many mingling miseries, 60 

As on she trod, ascended high 

And trumpeted my Victory! 

Brother, tell what thou hast done. 

VICE 

I have extinguished the noonday sun 

In the carnage smoke of battles won. 65 

Famine, Murder, Hell, and Power 

Were sated in that joyous hour 

Which searchless fate had stampt for me 

With the seal of his security, 

For the bloated Wretch on yonder throne 7° 

Commanded the bloody fray to rise. 
Like me he joyed at the stifled moan 

Wrung from a Nation's miseries 
Whilst the snakes, whose slime even him defiled, 
In extacies of malice smiled. ... 75 

They thought 'twas theirs!! — but mine the deed. 
Theirs is the toil, but mine the meed. 
Ten thousand victims madly bleed. 
They think that tyrants goad them there 
With poisonous war to taint the air, 80 

[But hired assassins! 'tis not vice, 
'Tis her sweet sister Cowardice . . . .] 

These tyrants on their beds of thorn 
Swell in their dreams of murderous fame 

(46) 



FALSHOOD AND VICE 

And with their gains to lift my name 85 

Restless they plan from night to morn. 
I — I do all. Without my aid. 
Thy daughter, that relentless maid. 
Could never o'er a deathbed urge 
The fury of her venomed scourge. 90 

FALSHOOD 

Brother, well. — The world is ours. 

And whether thou or I have won. 
The pestilence expectant lowers 

On all beneath yon blasted Sun. 
Our joys, our toils, our honors meet 95 

In the milkwhite and wormy winding sheet. 
A short-lived joy, unceasing care. 
Some heartless scraps of godly prayer, 
A moody curse and a frenzied sleep 
Ere gapes the grave's unclosing deep, 100 

A tyrant's dream, a coward's start. 
The ice that clings to a priestly heart, 
A judge's frown, a courtier's smile. 
Make the great whole for which we toil. 
And Brother! Whether thou or I 105 

Have done the work of misery. 
It little boots. — Thy toil and pain 
Without my aid were more than vain. 
And but for thee I ne'er had sate 
The guardian of Heaven's palace gate. no 



(47) 



IS>^13'^^^IS'0!S>^(3>^IS>^IS- 



To the Emperors o£ Russia and Austria 

who eyed the battle of Austerlitz from the heights 

whilst Buonaparte was active in the 

thickest of the fight 



Coward Chiefs! who, while the fight 

Rages in the plain below. 
Hide the shame of your affright 

On yon distant mountain's brow, 
Does one human feeling creep 5 

Thro' your hearts' remorseless sleep 
On that silence cold and deep? 

Does one impulse flow 
Such as fires the Patriot's breast, 
Such as breaks the Hero's rest? lo 

No, cowards! ye are calm and still. 

Keen frosts that blight the human bud, 

Each opening petal blight and kill 
And bathe its tenderness in blood. 

Ye hear the groans of those who die, 15 

Ye hear the whistling death-shots fly. 

And when the yells of Victory 
Float o'er the murdered good 

Ye smile secure. — On yonder plain 

The game, if lost, begins again. 20 

Think ye the restless fiend who haunts 
The tumult of yon gory field, 

(48) 



TO THE EMPERORS OF RUSSIA AND AUSTRIA 

Whom neither shame nor danger daunts. 
Who dares not fear, who cannot yield. 

Will not with Equalizing blow 25 

Exalt the high, abase the low. 

And in one mighty shock o'erthrow 
The slaves that sceptres wield 

Till from the ruin of the storm 

Ariseth Freedom's awful form? 30 

Hushed below the battle's jar 

Night rests silent on the Heath, 
Silent save where vultures soar 

Above the wounded warrior's death. 
How sleep ye now, unfeeling Kings! 35 

Peace seldom folds her snowy wings 
On poisoned memory's conscience-stings 

Which lurk bad hearts beneath, 
Nor downy beds procure repose 
Where crime and terror mingle throes. 40 

Yet may your terrors rest secure. 

Thou, Northern chief, why startest thou? 
Pale Austria, calm those fears. Be sure 

The tyrant needs such slaves as you. 
Think ye the world would bear his sway 45 

Were dastards such as you away? 
No! they would pluck his plumage gay 

Torn from a nation's woe 
And lay him in the oblivious gloom 
Where Freedom now prepares your tomb. 50 



(49) 



■Ctf.^iS'^tS'^^^i^^^^iS-^ 



To November 



O month of gloom, whose sullen brow 
Bears stamp of storms that lurk beneath, 

No care or horror bringest thou 
To one who draws his breath 

Where Zephyrs play and sunbeams shine 

Unstained by any fog of thine. 

Whilst thou obscurest the face of day 
Her radiant eyes can gild the gloom, 

Darting a soft and vernal ray 
On Nature's leafless tomb. 

Yes! tho' the landscape's beauties flee 

My Harriet makes it spring to me. 



Then raise thy fogs, invoke thy storms, 

Thy malice still my soul shall mar, 
And whilst thy rage the Heaven deforms ^5 

Shall laugh at every care. 
And each pure feeling shall combine 
To tell its Harriet "I am thine!" 



It once was May; the Month of Love 

Did all it could to yield me pleasure, 20 

Waking each green and vocal grove 

To a many-mingling measure. 
But warmth and peace could not impart 
To such a cold and shuddering heart. 

(50) 



TO NOVEMBER 

Now thou art here — come! do thy worst 25 

To chill the breast that Harriet warms. 

I fear me sullen Month thou'lt burst 
With envy of her charms 

And finding nothing's to be done 

Turn to December ere thou'st won! 30 



(5>) 



tS'dS'OtS'^iS'O^^iS'OiS'OiS' 



Written on a beautiful day in Spring 



In that strange mental wandering when to live 

To breathe, to be, is undivided joy. 

When the most woe-worn wretch would cease to grieve. 

When satiation's self would fail to cloy; 

When unpercipient of all other things 5 

Than those that press around, the breathing Earth 

The gleaming sky and the fresh season's birth. 

Sensation all its wondrous rapture brings 

And to itself not once the mind recurs — 

Is it foretaste of Heaven? lo 

So sweet as this the nerves it stirs, 
And mingling in the vital tide 

With gentle motion driven, 
Cheers the sunk spirits, lifts the languid eye. 
And scattering thro' the frame its influence wide 15 

Revives the spirits when they droop and die. 
The frozen blood with genial beaming warms 
And to a gorgeous fly the sluggish worm transforms. 



(52) 



O«&^£5^«5O^OJ&O25O«s^0 



On leaving London for Wales. 



Thou miserable city! where the gloom 

Of penury mingles with the tyrant's pride, 
And virtue bends in sorrow o'er the tomb 

Where Freedom's hope and Truth's high Courage died. 
May floods and vales and mountains me divide 5 

From all the taints thy wretched walls contain, 
That life's extremes in desolation wide 

No more heap horrors on my beating brain 
Nor sting my shuddering heart to sympathy with pain. 

With joy I breathe the last and full farewell lo 

That long has quivered on my burdened heart. 
My natural sympathies to rapture swell 

As from its day thy cheerless glooms depart. 
Nor all the glare thy gayest scenes impart 

Could lure one sigh, could steal one tear from me, 15 
Or lull to languishment the wakeful smart 

Which virtue feels for all 'tis forced to see. 
Or quench the eternal flame of generous Liberty. 

Hail to thee, Cambria, for the unfettered wind 

Which from thy wilds even now methinks I feel 20 

Chasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind 

And tightening the soul's laxest nerves to steel! 
True! Mountain Liberty alone may heal 

The pain which Custom's obduracies bring. 
And he who dares in fancy even to steal 25 

One draught from Snowdon's ever-sacred spring 
Blots out the unholiest rede of worldly witnessing. 

(53) 



ON LEAVING LONDON FOR WALES 

And shall that soul to selfish peace resigned 

So soon forget the woe its fellows share? 
Can Snowdon's Lethe from the freeborn mind 3° 

So soon the page of injured penury tear? 
Does this fine mass of human passion dare 

To sleep, unhonouring the patriot's fall, 
Or life's sweet load in quietude to bear 

While millions famish even in Luxury's hall 35 

And Tyranny high-raised stern lowers over all? 

No, Cambria! never may thy matchless vales 

A heart so false to hope and virtue shield. 
Nor ever may thy spirit-breathing gales 

Waft freshness to the slaves who dare to yield. 40 

For me! . . . the weapon that I burn to wield 

I seek amid thy rocks to ruin hurled 
That Reason's flag may over Freedom's field, 

Symbol of bloodless victory, wave unfurled — 
A meteor-sign of love effulgent o'er the world. 45 

Hark to that shriek! my hand had almost clasped 

The dagger that my heart had cast away 
When the pert slaves, whose wanton power had grasped 

All hope that springs beneath the eye of day. 
Pass before memory's gaze in long array. 50 

The storm fleets by and calmer thoughts succeed. 
Feelings once more mild reason's voice obey. 

Woe be the tyrants' and murderers' meed, 
But Nature's wound alone should make their 
Conscience bleed. 

Do thou, wild Cambria, calm each struggling thought; 55 
Cast thy sweet veil of rocks and woods between. 

That by the soul to indignation wrought 

Mountains and dells be mingled with the scene. 

(54) 



ON LEAVING LONDON FOR WALES 

Let me forever be what I have been, 

But not forever at my needy door 60 

Let Misery linger, speechless, pale and lean. 

I am the friend of the unfriended poor; 
Let me not madly stain their righteous cause in gore. 

No more! the visions fade before my sight 

Which Fancy pictures in the waste of air 65 

Like lovely dreams ere morning's chilling light. 

And sad realities alone are there. 
Ah! neither woe nor fear nor pain can tear 

Their image from the tablet of my soul, 
Nor the mad floods of Despotism where 70 

Lashed into desperate furiousness they roll. 
Nor passion's soothing voice, nor interest's cold control. 



(55) 



•^^^tS'OiS'^tS'^iv^^^^^ 



A winter's day 



O! wintry day! that mockest spring 

With hopes of the reviving yearl 
That sheddest softness from thy wing 
And near the cascade's murmuring 

Awakenest sounds so clear 5 

That peals of vernal music swing 

Thro' the balm atmosphere. 

Why hast thou given, O year! to May 

A birth so premature, 
To live one incompleted day lo 

That the mad whirlwind's sullen sway 

May sweep it from the moor 
And winter reassume the sway 

That shall so long endure? 

Art thou like Genius's matin bloom 15 

Unwelcome promise of its prime 
That scattereth its rich perfume 

Around the portals of the tomb 

Decking the scar of time 
In mockery of the early doom? 20 

Art thou like Passion's rapturous dream 

That o'er life's stormy dawn 
Doth dart its wild and flamy beam 
Yet like a fleeting flash doth seem 

When many chequered years are gone 25 

And tell the illusion of its gleam 

Life's blasted springs alone? 

(56) 



A WINTER S DAY 

Whate'er thou emblemest, I'll breathe 

Thy transitory sweetness now. 
And whether Health with roseate wreathe 30 

May bind mine head, or creeping Death 

Steal o'er my pulse's flow. 
Struggling the wintry winds beneath 

I'll love thy vernal glow. 



(57) 



'^iS'^i^^iS'^^OiS'^tS'^^^0 



To Liberty 



O let not Liberty 

Silently perish; 
May the groan and the sigh 

Yet the flame cherish 
Till the voice to Nature's bursting heart given, 5 

Ascending loud and high 

A world's indignant cry. 

And, startling on his throne 

The tyrant grim and lone, 
Shall beat the deaf vault of Heaven. 10 

Say, can the Tyrant's frown 

Daunt those who fear not 
Or break the spirits down 

His badge that wear not? 
Can chains or death or infamy subdue 15 

The free and fearless soul 

That dreads not their control. 

Sees Paradise and Hell, 

Sees the Palace and the cell, 
Yet bravely dares prefer the good and true? 20 

Regal pomp and pride 

The Patriot falls in scorning. 
The spot whereon he died 

Should be the despot's warning. 
The voice of blood shall on his crimes 

call down Revenge! 25 

And the spirits of the brave 

(58) 



TO LIBERTY 

Shall Start from every grave 
Whilst from her Atlantic throne 
Freedom sanctifies the groan 
That fans the glorious fires of its change. 30 

Monarch! sure employer 

Of vice and want and woe. 
Thou conscienceless destroyer, 

Who and what art thou! — 
The dark prison house that in the dust shall lie, 35 

The pyramid which guilt 

First planned, which man has built; 

At whose footstone want and woe 

With a ceaseless murmur flow 
And whose peak attracts the tempests of the sky. 40 

The pyramids shall fall 

And Monarchs! so shall ye! 
Thrones shall rust in the hall 

Of forgotten royalty 
Whilst Virtue, Truth and Peace shall arise 45 

And a Paradise on Earth 

From your fall shall date its birth. 

And human life shall seem 

Like a short and happy dream 
Ere we wake in the daybeam of the skies. 50 



(59) 



<^tS>^iS'^lS'^^^tS>^iS-C^^ 



On Robert Emmet's tomb 



May the tempests of Winter that sweep o'er thy tomb 
Disturb not a slumber so sacred as thine; 
May the breezes of summer that breathe of perfume 
Waft their balmiest dews to so hallowed a shrine. 

May the foot of the tyrant, the coward, the slave, 5 

Be palsied with dread where thine ashes repose. 
Where that undying shamrock still blooms on thy grave 
Which sprung when the dawnlight of Erin arose. 

There oft have I marked the grey gravestones among, 
Where thy relics distinguished in lowliness lay, lo 

The peasant boy pensively lingering long 
And silently weep as he passed away. 

And how could he not pause if the blood of his sires 
Ever wakened one generous throb in his heart? 
How could he inherit a spark of their fires 15 

If tearless and frigid he dared to depart? 

Not the scrolls of a court could emblazon thy fame 
Like the silence that reigns in the palace of thee, 
Like the whispers that pass of thy dearly loved name, 
Like the tears of the good, like the groans of the free. 20 

No trump tells thy virtues — the grave where they rest 
With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame. 
Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caresst 
Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name. 

(60) 



ON ROBERT EMMET S TOMB 

When the storm cloud that lowers o'er the daybeam 

is gone, 25 

Unchanged, unextinguished its lifespring will shine. 
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan 
She will smile thro' the tears of revival on thine. 



(61) 



^Jsi^eiO^Oi3"&£&<^J&0^i!' 



a Tale of Society as it is 
from facts 

1811 



She was an Aged Woman, and the years 

Which she had numbered on her toilsome way 

Had bowed her natural powers to decay. 

She was an Aged Woman, yet the ray 

Which faintly glimmered thro' the starting tears 5 

Pressed from their beds by silent misery 

Hath soul's imperishable energy. 

She was a cripple, and incapable 

To add one mite to golden luxury. 

And therefore did her spirit clearly feel 10 

That Poverty — the crime of tainting stain — 

Would merge her in its depths never to rise again. 

One only son's love had supported her. 

She long had struggled with infirmity 

Lingering from human lifescenes, for to die 15 

When fate has spared to send some mental tie 

Not many wish, and surely fewer dare. 

But when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced her Child 

For tyrant's power unhallowed arms to wield. 

Bend to another's will, become a thing 20 

More senseless than the sword of battle field, 

Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting 

And many years had past ere comfort they would bring. 

(62) 



A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS 

For seven years did this poor woman live 

In unparticipated solitude. 25 

Thou might'st have seen her in the desart rude 

Picking the scattered remnants of its wood. 

If human, thou might'st there have learned to grieve. 

The gleanings of precarious charity 

Her scantiness of food did scarce supply; 30 

The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt 

Within her ghastly hollowness of eye; 

Each arrow of the Season's change she felt, 

Yet still she yearned ere her sad course were run — 

One only hope it was — once more to see her son. 35 

It was an eve of June, when every star 

Spoke peace from Heaven to those on Earth that live. 

She rested on the moor . . . 'twas such an eve 

When first her soul began indeed to grieve — 

Then he was here . . . now he is very far. 40 

The freshness of the balmy evening 

A sorrow o'er her weary soul did fling. 

Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear; 

A balm was in the poison of the sting. 

This aged sufferer for many a year, 45 

Had never felt such comfort .... she supprest 

A sigh, and turning round — clasp'd William to her breast. 

And tho' his form was wasted by the woe 

Which despots on their victims love to wreak, 

Tho' his sunk eyeball, and his faded cheek, 50 

Of slavery, violence, and scorn did speak. 

Yet did the aged Woman's bosom glow; 

The vital fire seemed reillumed within 

By this sweet unexpected welcoming. 

O! consummation of the fondest hope 55 

(63) 



A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS 

That ever soared on Fancy's dauntless wing! 

O! tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope! 

Prince! who dost swell upon thy mighty sway 

When thou canst feel such love thou shalt be great as they! 

Her son, compelled, the tyrant's foes had fought, 60 

Had bled in battle, and the stern control 

That ruled his sinews and coerced his soul 

Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl 

And unsubduable evils on him wrought. 

He was the shadow of the lusty child 65 

Who, when the time of summer season smiled, 

For her did earn a meal of honesty 

And with affectionate discourse beguiled 

The keen attacks of pain and poverty 

Till power as envying this, her only joy, 7° 

From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy. 

And now cold charity's unwelcome dole 

Was insufficient to support the pair. 

And they would perish rather than would bear 

The law's stern slavery and the insolent stare 75 

With which law loves to rend the poor man's soul. 

The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noise 

Of heartless mirth which women, men and boys 

Wake in this scene of legal misery . . . 

Oh! William's spirit rather would rejoice 80 

On some wild heath with his dear charge to die. 

The death that keenest penury might give 

Were sweeter far than cramped by slavery to live. 

And they have borne thus long the winter's cold. 

The driving sleet, the penetrating rain; 85 

(64) 



A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS 

It seemeth that their element is pain 

And that they never will feel life again. 

For is it life to be so deathlike old? — 

The same kind light feeds every living thing 

That spreads its blossoms to the breath of spring, 90 

But who feeds thee, unhappy wanderer? 

With the fat slaves, who from the rich man's board 

Lick the fallen crumbs thou scantily dost share 

And mutterest for the gift a heartless prayer, 

The flowers fade not thus. Thou must poorly die. 95 

The changeful year feeds them. The tyrant, man, feeds thee. 

And is it life that in youth's blasted morn 

Not one of youth's dear raptures are enjoyed. 

All natural bliss with servitude alloyed. 

The beating heart, the sparkling eye, destroy'd, 100 

And manhood of its brightest glories shorn 

Debased by rapine, drunkenness and woe. 

The foeman's sword, the vulgar tyrant's blow, 

Ruined in body and soul till Heaven arrive. 

His health and peace insultingly laid low, 105 

Without a fear to die or wish to live, 

Withered and sapless, miserably poor. 

Relinquished for his wounds to beg from door to door? 

Seest thou yon humble sod where oziers bind 

The pillow of the monumentless dead? no 

There since her thorny pilgrimage is sped 

The aged sufferer rests on the cold bed 

Which all who seek or who avoid must find. 

O let her sleep! and there at close of eve 

'Twere holiness in solitude to grieve 115 

And ponder on the wretchedness of Earth. 

(65) 



A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS 



With joy of melancholy I would leave 

A spot that to such deep-felt thoughts gives birth. 

And tho' I could not pour the useless prayer 

Would weep upon the grave and leave a blessing there. 120 



(66) 



The solitary 

1810 

Barest thou amid this varied multitude 
To live alone, an isolated thing, 
To see the busy beings round thee spring 
And care for none? — in thy calm solitude, 
A flower that scarce breathes in the desart rude 5 

To Zephyr's passing wing? 

Not the swarth Pariah in some Indian Grove 
Lone, lean and hunted by his brothers' hate. 
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate 
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love. 10 

He bears a load which nothing can remove — 
A killing, withering weight. 

He smiles . . . 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery; 
He speaks . . . the cold words flow not from his soul; 
He acts like others; drains the genial bowl; 15 

Yet, yet he longs, altho he fears, to die. 
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly. 
Dull Life's extremest goal. 



(67) 



The Monarch's funeral 

An Anticipation 
i8io 

The glowing gloom of eventide 

Has quenched the sunbeam's latest glow 

And lowers upon the woe and pride 
That blasts the city's peace below. 

At such an hour how sad the sight, 5 

To mark a Monarch's funeral 
When the dim shades of awful night 

Rest on the coffin's velvet pall; 

To see the Gothic Arches shew 

A varied mass of light and shade, lo 

While to the torches' crimson glow 

A vast cathedral is displayed; 

To see with what a silence deep 

The thousands o'er this death scene brood 
As tho' some wizard's charm did creep 15 

Upon the countless multitude; 

To see this awful pomp of death 

For one frail mass of mouldering clay 

When nobler men the tomb beneath 

Have sunk unwept, unseen away. 20 

(68) 



THE MONARCH S FUNERAL 

For who was he, the uncoffined slain. 

That fell in Erin's injured isle 
Because his spirit dared disdain 

To light his country's funeral pile? 

Shall he not ever live in lays 25 

The warmest that a Muse may sing 
Whilst monumental marbles raise 

The fame of a departed King? 

May not the Muse's darling theme 

Gather its glorious garland thence 3^ 

Whilst some frail tombstone's Dotard dream 

Fades with a monarch's impotence! 

— Yes, 'tis a scene of wondrous awe 

To see a coffined Monarch lay 
That the wide grave's insatiate maw 35 

Be glutted with a regal prey! 

Who now shall public councils guide? 

Who rack the poor on gold to dine? 
Who waste the means of regal pride 

For which a million wretches pine? 40 

It is a child of earthly breath, 

A being perishing as he. 
Who throned in yonder pomp of death 

Hath now fulfilled his destiny. 

Now dust to dust restore! . . . O Pride, 45 

Unmindful of thy fleeting power, 
Whose empty confidence has vied 

With human life's most treacherous hour, 

(69) 



THE MONARCH S FUNERAL 

One moment feel that in the breast 

With regal crimes and troubles vext 50 

The pampered Earthworms soon will rest, 

One moment feel . . . and die the next. 

Yet deem not in the tomb's control 

The vital lamp of life can fail. 
Deem not that e'er the Patriot's soul 55 

Is wasted by the withering gale. 

The dross, which forms the King, is gone, 

And reproductive Earth supplies, 
As senseless as the clay and stone 

In which the kindred body lies. 60 

The soul which makes the Man doth soar 

And love alone survives to shed 
All that its tide of bliss can pour 

Of Heaven upon the blessed dead. 

So shall the Sun forever burn, 65 

So shall the midnight lightnings die, 
And joy that glows at Nature's bourn 

Outlive terrestrial misery. 

And will the crowd who silent stoop 

Around the lifeless Monarch's bier, 70 

A mournful and dejected group. 

Breathe not one sigh, or shed one tear? 

Ah! no. 'Tis wonder, 'tis not woe. 

Even royalists might groan to see 
The Father of the People so 75 

Lost in the Sacred Majesty. 

(70) 



^^^^iS>CiS>Ci3>^(3'^iS'Oi3> 



To the Republicans of North America 



Brothers! between you and me 

Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar, 

Yet in spirit oft I see 

On the wild and winding shore 

Freedom's bloodless banner wave, 5 

Feel the pulses of the brave, 

Unextinguished by the grave. 
See them drenched in sacred gore, 

Catch the patriot's gasping breath 

Murmuring Liberty in death. lo 

Shout aloud! let every slave 

Crouching at corruption's throne 
Start into a man, and brave 

Racks and chains without a groan! 
Let the castle's heartless glow 15 

And the hovel's vice and woe 
Fade like gaudy flowers that blow. 

Weeds that peep and then are gone, 
Whilst from misery's ashes risen 
Love shall burst the Captive's prison. 20 

Cotopaxi! bid the sound 

Thro' thy sister mountains ring 
Till each valley smile around 

At the blissful welcoming. 
And O! thou stern Ocean-deep, 25 

Whose eternal billows sweep 
Shores where thousands wake to weep 

Whilst they curse some villain King, 

(7>) 



TO THE REPUBLICANS OF NORTH AMERICA 

On the winds that fan thy breast 

Bear thou news of freedom's rest. 3° 

Earth's remotest bounds shall start, 

Every despot's bloated cheek. 
Pallid as his bloodless heart, 

Frenzy, woe and dread shall speak . . . 
Blood may fertilize the tree 35 

Of new bursting Liberty. 
Let the guiltiness then be 

On the slaves that ruin wreak. 
On the unnatural tyrant-brood 
Slow to Peace and swift to blood. 40 

Can the daystar dawn of love 

Where the flag of war unfurled 
Floats with crimson stain above 

Such a desolated world . . . 
Never! but to vengeance driven 45 

When the patriot's spirit shriven 
Seeks in death its native Heaven, 

Then to speechless horror hurled. 
Widowed Earth may balm the bier 
Of its memory with a tear, 50 



(72) 



O^^sS'^tS'^iS'^^^iS'OtS'O 



Written at Cwm Elian 
1811 

When the peasant hies him home, and the day planet 

reposes 
Pillowed on the azure peaks that bound the western sight, 
When each mountain flower its modest petal tremulously 

closes 
And sombre shrouded twilight comes to lead her sister 

Night, 
Vestal dark! how dear to me are then thy dews of lightness 
That bathe my brow so withering scorched beneath the 

daybeam's brightness. 
More dear to me, tho' day be robed in vest of dazzling 

whiteness, 
Is one folding of the garment dusk that wraps thy form, O 

Night! 

With thee I still delight to sit where dizzy Danger slumbers. 
Where 'mid the rocks the fitful blast hath wak'd its wildest 
lay 10 

Till beneath the yellow moonbeam decay the dying num- 
bers 
And silence, even in fancy's throne, hath seized again the 

sway. 
Again she must resign it, hark! for wildest cadence pouring 
Far, far amid the viewless glen beneath the Elian roaring 
Mid tongued woods, and shapeless rocks with moonlight 
summits soaring 15 

It mingles its magic murmuring with the blast that floats 
away. 

(73) 



i&o^oeoj^02&o<&o«&oei 



To Death 



Death, where is thy victory! 
To triumph whilst I die. 
To triumph whilst thine ebon wing 
Infolds my shuddering soul, 

O Death, where is thy sting? 5 

Not when the tides of murder roll, 
When Nations groan that Kings may bask in bliss, 
Death, couldst thou boast a victory such as this? 
When in his hour 

Of pomp and power lo 

Thy slave, the mightiest murderer, gave 
Mid nature's cries 
The sacrifice 
Of myriads to glut the grave. 

When sunk the tyrant, sensualism's slave, 15 

Or Freedom's life-blood streamed upon thy shrine, 
Stern despot, couldst thou boast a Victory such 
as mine? 

To know, in dissolution's void, 

That Earthly hopes and fears decay. 

That every sense, but Love, destroyed, 20 

Must perish with its kindred clay. 

Perish ambition's crown! 

Perish its sceptered sway! 
From Death's pale front fade Pride's fastidious frown. 
In death's damp vault the lurid fires decay 25 

Which Envy lights at heaven-born virtue's beam 

That all the cares subside 

(74) 



TO DEATH 

Which lurk beneath the tide 

Of life's unquiet stream .... 

Yes! this were Victory! 30 

And on some rock whose dark form glooms the sky 
To stretch these pale limbs when the soul is fled. 
To baffle the lean passions of their prey. 
To sleep within the chambers of the dead! — 
Oh! not the Wretch around whose dazzling throne 35 
His countless courtiers mock the words they say, 
Triumphs, amid the bud of glory blown. 
As I on Death's last pang and faint expiring groan. 

Tremble, ye Kings whose luxury mocks the woe 

That props thy column of unnatural state, 40 

Ye, the curses deep, tho' low. 

From misery's tortured breast that flow. 

Shall usher to your fate. — 
Tremble, ye conquerors, at whose fell command 
The War-fiend Riots o'er an happy land — 45 

Ye, desolation's gory throng 

Shall bear from victory along 

To Death's mysterious strand. 
'Twere well that Vice no pain should know 

But every scene that memory gives 5° 

Tho' from the selfsame fount might flow 

The joy which Virtue aye receives . . . 
It is the grave — no conqueror triumphs now; 

The wreathes of bay that bound his head 

Wither around his fleshless brow. 55 

Where is the mockery fled 

That fired the tyrant's gaze? 
'Tis like the fitful glare that plays 
On some dark-rolling thunder cloud. 

Plays whilst the thunders roar, 60 

(75) 



TO DEATH 

But when the storm is past 

Fades like the warrior's name. 
Death! in thy vault when Kings and peasants lie 
Not power's stern rod or fame's most thrilling blasts 
Can liberate thy captives from decay. 65 

My triumph, their defeat; my joy, their shame! 
Welcome then, peaceful Death, I'll sleep with thee — 
Mine be thy quiet home, and thine my Victory. 



(76) 



iS>OtS>C!S-^^^iS>^iS'OiS'OiS' 



Dark Spirit of the desart rude 



Dark Spirit of the desart rude 

That o'er this awful solitude. 

Each tangled and untrodden wood. 

Each dark and silent glen below. 

Where sunlight's gleamings never glow, 5 

Whilst jetty, musical and still. 

In darkness speeds the mountain rill; 

That o'er yon broken peaks sublime, 

Wild shapes that mock the scythe of time. 

And the pure Elian's foamy course, lo 

Wavest thy wand of magic force; 

Art thou yon sooty and fearful fowl 

That flaps its wing o'er the leafless oak 
That o'er the dismal scene doth scowl 

And mocketh music with its croak? 15 

I've sought thee where day's beams decay 

On the peak of the lonely hill, 
I've sought thee where they melt away 

By the wave of the pebbly rill; 
I've strained to catch thy murky form 20 

Bestride the rapid and gloomy storm; 
Thy red and sullen eyeball's glare 
Has shot, in a dream, thro' the midnight air 

But never did thy shape express 

Such an emphatic gloominess. 25 

And where art thou, O thing of gloom? . . . 
On Nature's unreviving tomb 

(77) 



DARK SPIRIT OF THE DESART RUDE 

Where sapless, blasted and alone 

She mourns her blooming centuries gone! — 

From the fresh sod the Violets peep, 50 

The buds have burst their frozen sleep. 

Whilst every green and peopled tree 

Is alive with Earth's sweet melody. 

But thou alone art here, 
Thou desolate Oak, whose scathed head 35 

For ages has never trembled. 
Whose giant trunk dead lichens bind 
Moaningly sighing in the wind. 
With huge loose rocks beneath thee spread. 

Thou, Thou alone art here! 4° 

Remote from every living thing, 

Tree, shrub or grass or flower. 
Thou seemest of this spot the King 

And with a regal power 
Suck like that race all sap away 45 

And yet upon the spoil decay. 



(78) 



iS-^^^lS'^^^tS'^lS'^lS'^lSy 



The pale, the cold and the moony smile 



The pale, the cold and the moony smile, 
Which the meteor beam of a stormy night 

Sheds on a lonely and seagirt isle 

Till the dawning of morn's undoubted light. 

Is the taper of life so fickle and wan 5 

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. 

Oh! Man, hold thee on with courage of soul 

Thro' the long, long night of thy doubtful way. 

And the billows of cloud that around thee roll 

Shall subside in the calm of eternal day, lo 

For all in this world we can surely know 

Is a little delight and a little woe. 

All we behold, we feel that we know; 

All we perceive, we know that we feel; 
And the coming of death is a fearful blow 15 

To a brain unencompassed by nervestrings of steel — 
When all that we know, we feel and we see 
Shall fleet by like an unreal mystery. 

The secret things of the grave are there 

Where all but this body must surely be, 20 

Tho' the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear 

No longer will live to hear or to see 
All that is bright and all that is strange 
In the gradual path of unending change. 

Who telleth the tales of unspeaking Death? 25 

Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? 

(79) 



THE PALE, THE COLD AND THE MOONY SMILE 

Who painteth the beings that are beneath 

The wide-stretching realms of the peopled tomb 
And uniteth the hopes of what shall be 
With the fears and the love for that which we see? 30 



(80) 



^S'^tS'^ts.^iS-^iS'^iS'^^^tS' 



Death-Spurning rocks! 



Death-spurning rocks! here have ye towered since Time 

Sprung from Tradition's mist-encircled height 
Which Memory's palsied pinion dreads to climb. 
Awed by the phantoms of its beamless night. 

Death-spurning rocks! Each jagged form 5 

Shall still arrest the passing storm 

Whilst rooted there the aged Oak 

Is shivered by the lightning's stroke. 
Years shall fade fast, and centuries roll away — 
Ye shall spurn death no more but like your Oak decay, lo 

A maniac-sufferer soared with wild intent 

Where Nature formed these wonders. On the way 
There is a little spot. Fiends would relent 

Knew they the snares that there for memory lay — 

How many a hope and many a fear 15 

And many a vain and bitter tear — 

Whilst each prophetic feeling wakes 

A brood of mad and venomed snakes 
To make the lifesprings of his soul their food, 
To twine around his veins and fatten on his blood. 20 



To quench his pangs he fled to the wild moor. 

One fleeting beam flashed but its gloom to shew. 
Turned was the way-worn wanderer from the door 
Where Pity's self promised to soothe his woe. 

Shall he turn back? The tempest there 25 

Sweeps fiercely thro' the turbid air 

(81) 



DEATH-SPURNING ROCKS! 

Beyond a gulph before that yawns. 

The daystar shines, the daybeam dawns. 
God! Nature! Chance! remit this misery — 
It burns! — why need he live to weep who does not fear 
to die? 30 



(82) 



rS-^^O^O^OtS'O^OlS'OiS-^ 



The Tombs 



These are the tombs. O cold and silent Death, 
Thy Kingdom and thy subjects here I see. 

The record of thy victories 

Is graven on every speaking stone 

That marks what once was man. 5 

These are the tombs. Am I, who sadly gaze 
On the corruption and the skulls around. 
To sum the mass of loathsomeness, 
And to a mound of mouldering flesh 

Say "thou wert human life!" lo 

In thee once throbbed the Patriot's beating heart, 
In thee once lived the Poet's soaring soul. 

The pulse of love, the calm of thought. 

Courage and charity and truth 

And high devotedness; 15 

All that could sanctify the meanest deeds. 
All that might give a manner and a form 

To matter's speechless elements. 

To every brute and morbid shape 

Of this phantasmal world: 20 

That the high sense which from the stern rebuke 
Of Erin's victim-patriot's death-soul shone. 

When blood and chains defiled the land, 

Lives in the torn uprooted heart 

His savage murderers burn. 25 

(83) 



THE TOMBS 

Ah, no! else while these tombs before me stand 
My soul would hate the coming of its hour. 
Nor would the hopes of life and love 
Be mingled with those fears of death 

That chill the warmest heart. 30 



(84) 



!siOJ3,0«.02&0«&0«iO«i^«l 



To Harriet 



It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven 

More perfectly will give those nameless joys 

Which throb within the pulses of the blood 

And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth 

Infuses in the heaven-born soul — O Thou, 5 

Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path 

Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold. 

Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits 

Which mark the bounds of Time and of the space 

When Time shall be no more: wilt thou not turn lo 

Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me, 

Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven 

And Heaven is Earth? — will not thy glowing cheek. 

Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine 

And breathe magnetic sweetness thro' the frame 15 

Of my corporeal nature, thro' the soul 

Now knit with these fine fibres? I would give 

The longest and the happiest day that fate 

Has marked on my existence but to feel 

One soul-reviving kiss . . . oh, thou most dear, 20 

'Tis an assurance that this Earth is Heaven 

And Heaven the flower of that untainted seed 

Which springeth here beneath such love as ours. 

Harriet! let death all mortal ties dissolve 

But ours shall not be mortal — the cold hand 25 

Of Time may chill the love of Earthly minds. 

Half frozen now, the frigid intercourse 

Of common souls lives but a summer's day. 

It dies, where it arose, upon this Earth, 



(85) 



TO HARRIET 

But ours! oh 'tis the stretch of fancy's hope 3° 

To portray its continuance as now, 

Warm, tranquil, spirit-healing. Nor when age 

Has tempered these wild extacies, and given 

A soberer tinge to the luxurious glow 

Which blazing on devotion's pinnacle 35 

Makes virtuous passion supersede the power 

Of reason, nor when life's aestival sun 

To deeper manhood shall have ripened me. 

Nor when some years have added judgment's store 

To all thy woman sweetness, all the fire 40 

Which throbs in thine enthusiast heart, not then 

Shall holy friendship (for what other name 

May love like ours assume?) not even then 

Shall custom so corrupt, or the cold forms 

Of this desolate world so harden us 45 

As when we think of the dear love that binds 

Our souls in soft communion, while we know 

Each other's thoughts and feelings, can we say 

Unblushingly a heartless compliment. 

Praise, hate or love with the unthinking world 50 

Or dare to cut the unrelaxing nerve 

That knits our love to Virtue — can those eyes 

Beaming with mildest radiance on my heart 

To purify its purity e'er bend 

To soothe its vice or consecrate its fears? 55 

Never, thou second selfl is confidence 

So vain in virtue that I learn to doubt 

The mirror even of Truth? — Dark Flood of Time, 

Roll as it listeth thee. I measure not 

By months or moments thy ambiguous course; 60 

Another may stand by me on thy brink 

And watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken 

Which pauses at my feet — the sense of love, 

(86) 



TO HARRIET 

The thirst for action, and the impassioned thought 

Prolong my being. If I wake no more 65 

My life more actual living will contain 

Than some grey veteran's of the world's cold school 

Whose listless hours unprofitably roll 

By one enthusiast feeling unredeemed. 

Virtue and Love! unbending Fortitude, 70 

Freedom, Devotedness and Purity — 

That life my Spirit consecrates to you. 



(87) 



tS.^iS>^l3'^lS'^ts>^i^^i^CtS> 



Sonnet 

To Harriet on her birth day 
August I, 1812 

O thou, whose radiant eyes and beamy smile — 

Yet even a sweeter somewhat indexing — 

Have known full many an hour of mine to guile 

Which else would only bitter memories bring, 

O ever thus, thus! as on this natal day, 

Tho' age's frost may blight those tender eyes, 

Destroy that kindling cheek's transparent dyes 

And those luxuriant tresses change to grey, 

Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glow 

May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn. 

Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o'erflow 

Which force from mine such quick and warm return, 

And I must love thee even more than this 

Nor doubt that Thou and I part but to meet in bliss. 



(88) 



^^lS-OiS'OlS'C!S'0!S'^iS'OWy 



Sonnet 

To a balloon, laden with Knowledge 

Bright ball of flame that thro' the gloom of even 

Silently takest thine etherial way 

And with surpassing glory dimmst each ray 

Twinkling amid the dark blue Depths of Heaven; 

Unlike the Fire thou bearest, soon shall thou 5 

Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom. 

Whilst that, unquencheable, is doomed to glow 

A watch light by the patriot's lonely tomb, 

A ray of courage to the opprest and poor, 

A spark, tho' gleaming on the. hovel's hearth, 10 

Which thro' the tyrants' gilded domes shall roar, 

A beacon in the darkness of the Earth, 

A Sun which o'er the renovated scene 

Shall dart like Truth where Falshood yet has been. 



(89) 



tS>0^^i3-^tS-^tS'^tS>^iS>^t^ 



Sonnet 

On launching some bottles filled with 
Knowledge into the Bristol Channel. 

Vessels of Heavenly medicine! may the breeze, 
Auspicious, waft your dark green forms to shore; 
Safe may ye stern the wide surrounding roar 
Of the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas; 
And oh! if Liberty e'er deigned to stoop 
From yonder lowly throne her crownless brow. 
Sure she will breathe around your emerald group 
The fairest breezes of her west that blow. 
Yes! she will waft ye to some freeborn soul 
Whose eyebeam, kindling as it meets your freight, 
Her heaven-born flame on suffering Earth will light 
Until Its radiance gleams from pole to pole 
And tyrant-hearts with powerless envy burst 
To see their night of ignorance dispersed. 



(90) 



fS'OiS-^iS'C^^^^^^iS'C^ 



Sonnet 

On waiting for a wind to cross the 
Bristol Channel from Devonshire to Wales. 

Oh! for the South's benign and balmy breeze! 

Come, gentle Spirit! thro' the wide Heaven sweep; 

Chase inauspicious Boreas from the seas, 

That gloomy tyrant of the unwilling deep. 

These wilds where Man's profane and tainting hand 5 

Nature's primaeval loveliness has marred, 

And some few souls of the high bliss debarred 

Which else obey her powerful command, 

I leave without a sigh. Ye mountain piles 

That load in grandeur Cambria's emerald vales, 10 

Whose sides are fair in cultivation's smiles. 

Around whose jagged heads the storm cloud sails — 

A heart that's all thine own receive in me. 

With Nature's fervour fraught and calm in purity. 



(9-) 



t^^^^O!S>OiS'^!S>^iS>^iS' 



To Harriet 



Harrietl thy kiss to my soul is dear; 

At evil or pain I would never repine 
If to every sigh and to every tear 

Were added a look and a kiss of thine. 
Nor is it the look when it glances fire, 5 

Nor the kiss when bathed in the dew of delight. 
Nor the throb of the heart when it pants desire 

From the shadows of eve to the morning light. 

But the look when a lustre of joy-mingled woe 

Has faintly obscured all its bliss-beaming Heaven, lo 
Such a lovely, benign and enrapturing glow 

As sunset can paint on the clouds of even. 
And a kiss, which the languish of silent love, 

Tho' eloquent, faints with the toil of expressing. 
Yet so light, that thou canst not refuse, my dove! 15 

To add this one to the debt of caressing. 

Harriet! adieu to all vice and care. 

Thy love is my Heaven, thy arms are my world; 
While thy kiss and thy look to my soul remain dear 

I should smile tho' Earth from its base be hurled. 20 
For a heart as pure and a mind as free 

As ever gave lover, to thee I give. 
And all that I ask in return from thee 

Is to love like me and with me to live. 

This heart that beats for thy love and bliss, 25 

Harriet! beats for its country too; 

(92) 



TO HARRIET 

And it never would thrill with thy look or kiss 
If it dared to that country's cause be untrue. 

Honor, and wealth and life it spurns. 

But thy love is a prize it is sure to gain, 30 

And the heart that with love and virtue burns 
Will never repine at evil or pain. 



(93) 



(S-^iS'O^OiS'OiS'OiS'O^OiSy 



Mary to the Sea-Wind 



I implore thee, I implore thee, softly swelling Breeze, 

Waft swift the sail of my lover to the shore 

That under the shadow of yon darkly-woven trees 

I may meet him, I may meet him to part with him no more. 

For this boon, for this boon, sweet Sea-Wind, will I weave 

A garland wild of heath flowers to breathe to thee perfume. 

Thou wilt kiss them, yet like Henry's thy kisses will but 

leave 
A more heaven-breathing fragiance and sense-enchanting 

bloom. 

And then on Summer evens I will hasten to inhale — 
Remembering that thou wert so kind — thy balmy, balmy 
breath; lo 

And when thy tender pinions in the gloom begin to fail 
I will catch thee to my bosom ere thou diest on the heath. 

I will catch thee to my bosom — and if Henry's oaths are 

true, 
A softer, sweeter grave thou wilt never find than there. 
Nor is it, lovely Sea- Wind, nor is it to undo 15 

That my arms are so inviting, that my bosom is so fair. 



(94) 



^:S>^iS'^^^tS>^iS'^ts.OiS>0 



A retrospect of Times of Old 



The mansions of the Kings are tenantless .... 

Low lie in dust their glory and their shame. 

No tongue survives their virtuous Deeds to bless, 

No tongue with execration blasts their fame, 

But in some ruined pile, where yet the gold* 5 

Casts purple brilliance o'er colossal snow. 

Where sapphire eyes in breathing statues glow 

And the tainted blast sighs mid the reeds below, 

Where grim effigies of the Gods of old 

In mockery stand of ever-changing men, lo 

Their ever-changing worship. Oh how vain! 

(Yet baubles aye must please the multitude.) 

There Desolation dwells! — Where are the Kings? 

Why sleep they now if sleep be not eternal? 

Cannot Oblivion's silent tauntings call 15 

The kings and heroes from their quietude 

Of Death to snatch the Scrolls from her palsying hand, 

To tell the world how mighty once they were 

They dare not wake . . . thy Victory is here 

O Death! — . Yet I hear unearthly voices cry, 20 

"Death, thou'lt be swallowed up in Victory!" 

Yes, Dream of fame! the halls are desolate 

Where whitened skeletons of thine heroes lie . . . 

Stillness keeps watch before each grass-grown gate 

Save where amid thy towers the Simoon's sigh 25 

Wakes the lone lyre whose mistress sleeps below 

And bids it thrill to notes of awfulness and woe. 

* Gilding yet remains on the cornices of the ruined 
palace of Persepolis — 

(95) 



A RETROSPECT OF TIMES OF OLD 

There, ages since, some Royal Bloodhound crept 

When on these pillared piles a midnight lay — 

Which, but from visioned memories, long has fled — 30 

To work ambition whilst his brother slept, 

And reckless of the peaceful smile that played 

Around his dream-fraught features — when betrayed 

They told each innocent secret of the day — 

Wakened the thoughtless victim, bade him stare 35 

Upon the murderous steel . . . The chaste pale glare 

Of the midnight moonbeam kissed its glittering blade — 

A moment! and its brightness, quenched in blood, 

Distained with murder the moon's silver flood. 

The blushing moon, wide-gathering vapours shrouded. 40 

One moment did he triumph; — but remorse. 

Suspicion, anguish, fear, all triumph clouded. 

Destruction . . Suicide . . his last resource . . . 

Wider yawned the torrent. The moon's stormy flash 

Disclosed its black tumultuousness . . . the crash 45 

Of rocks and boughs mixed with its roarings hoarse. 

A moment! And he dies! Hark to the awful dash! * 

Such were thy works, Ambition, even amid 

The darksome times of generations gone, 

Which the dark veil of viewless hours has hid, — 50 

The veil of hours forever onward flown. 

Swift roll the waves of Time's eternal tide: 

The peasant's grave, marked by no tribute stone. 

No less remembered than the gilded bed 

On which the hero slept! now ever gone, — 55 

Passion and will and power, flesh, heart and brain and bone! 

* I believe it was only in those early times when Mon- 
archy was in its apprenticeship that its compunction for 
evil deeds was unendurable . . There is no instance upon 
record parallel to that related above, but I know that 
neither men, nor sets of men become vicious but slowly 
and step by step, each less difficult than the former. 

(96) 



A RETROSPECT OF TIMES OF OLD 

Each trophied bust where gore-emblazoned Victory 
In breathing marble shook the ensanguined spear, 
Flinging its heavy purple canopy 

In cold expanse o'er martyred Freedom's bier, 60 

Each gorgeous altar where the victims bled 
And grim Gods frowned above their human prey, 
Where the high temple echoing to the yells 
Of death-pangs, to the long and shuddering groan. 
Whilst sacred hymns along the aisles did swell 65 

And pitiless priests drowned each discordant moan — 
All, all have faded in past time away! 
New Gods, like men, changing in ceaseless flow. 
Ever at hand as antient ones decay. 

Heroes and Kings and laws have plunged this world in 
woe. 70 

Sesostris, Caesar, and Pizarro come! 

Thou Moses! and Mahommed,* leave that gloom! 

Destroyers! never shall your memory die! 

Approach, pale Phantom, to yon mould'ring tomb 

Where all thy bones, hopes, crimes and passions lie. 75 

And thou, poor peasant, when thou pass't the grave 

Where deep enthroned in monumental pride 

Sleep low in dust the mighty and the brave, 

Where the mad conqueror whose gigantic stride 

The Earth was too confined for, doth abide, 80 

Housing his bones amid a little clay, 

In gratitude to Nature's Spirit bend 

And wait in still hope for thy better end. 

* To this innumerable list of legal murderers our own 
age affords numerous addenda. Frederic of Prussia, Buona- 
parte, Suwarroff, Wellington and Nelson are the most 
skilful and notorious scourges of their species of the 
present day. — 



(97) 



The Voyage 

A Fragment 
Devonshire — August 1812 

Quenched is old Ocean's rage; 

Each puissant wave that flung 
Its neck, that writhed beneath the tempest's scourge 

Indignant up to Heaven, 
Now breathes in its sweet slumber 5 

To mingle with the day 

A spirit of tranquillity. 

Beneath the cloudless sun 

The gently swelling main 

Scatters a thousand colourings 10 

And the wind that wanders vaguely thro' the void 
With the flapping of the Sail, and the dashing at the prow. 
And the whistle of the sailor in that shadow of a calm, 

A ravishing harmony makes. 
O! why is a rapt soul e'er recalled 15 

From the palaces of visioned bliss 
To the cells of real sorrow? 

That little vessel's company 

Beheld the sight of loveliness — 

The dark grey rocks that towered 20 

Above the slumbering sea, 

And their reflected forms 
Deep in its faintly-waving mirror given. 

They heard the low breeze sighing 

The listless sails and ropes among, 25 

(98) 



THE VOYAGE 

They heard the music at the prow. 
And the hoarse, distant clash 
Sent from yon gloomy caves 
Where Earth and Ocean strive for mastery. 

A mingled mass of feeling 3^ 

Those human spirits prest 

As they heard, and saw, and felt 
Some fancied fear, and some real woe 
Mixed with those glimpses of heavenly joy 

That dawned on each passive soul. 35 

Where is the woe that never sees 
One joybeam illumine the night of the mind? 

Where is the bliss that never feels 
One dart from the quiver of earthly pain? 

Tho' young and happy spirits now 40 

Along the world are voyaging. 
Love, friendship, virtue, truth. 
Simplicity of sentiment and speech, 

And other sensibilities 
Known by no outward name, 45 

Some faults that Love forgives. 
Some flaws that Friendship shares. 

Hearts passionate and benevolent. 

Alive, and urgent to repair 
The errors of their brother heads — 50 

All voyage with them too. 

They look to land .... they look to Sea; 

Bounded one is, and palpable 

Even as a noonday scene . . 

The other indistinct and dim, 55 

Spangled with dizzying sunbeams, 

';99) 



THE VOYAGE 

Boundless, untrod by human step. 

Like the vague blisses of a midnight dream 

Or Death's immeasurable main. 
Whose lovely islands gleam at intervals 60 

Upon the Spirit's visioned solitude 
Thro' Earth's wide woven and many-colour'd veil. 

It is a moveless calm. 

The sailor's whistle shrill 
Speeds clearly thro' the sleeping atmosphere — 65 

As country curates pray for rain 

When drought has frustrated full long — 

He whistles for a wind 

With just the same success. 
Two honest souls were they 70 

And oft had braved in fellowship the storm, 

Till from that fellowship had sprung 

A sense of right and liberty. 
Unbending, undismayed, aye they had seen 
Where danger, death and terror played 75 

With human lives in the boiling deep. 

And they had seen the scattered spray 
Of the green and jagged mountain-wave 
Hid in the lurid tempest-cloud. 
With lightnings tinging all its fleeting form, 80 

Rolled o'er their fragile bark. 

A dread and hopeless month 

Had they participated once 

In that diminutive bark: — 
Their tearless eyes uplifted unto Heaven 85 

So fruitlessly for aid! 
Their parched mouths oped eager to the shower, 
So thin and sleety in that arctic clime. 

Their last hard crust was shared 

(100) 



THE VOYAGE 

Impartial in equality 9° 

And in the dreadful night 

Where all had failed . . . even hope, 

Together they had shared the gleam 

Shot from yon lighthouse tower 

Across the waste of waves; 95 

And therefore are they brave, free, generous. 
For who that had so long fought hand to hand 
With famine, toil and hazard, smil'd at Death 
When leaning from the bursting billow's height 
He stares so ghastly terrible, would waste loo 

One needless word for life's contested toys? 
Who that had shared his last and nauseous crust 
With Famine and a friend, would not divide 
A landsman's meal with one who needed it? 
Who that could rule the elements and spurn 105 

Their fiercest rage, would bow before a slave 
Decked in the fleetingness of Earthly power? 
Who that had seen the soul of Nature work — 
Blind, changeless and eternal in her paths — * 
Would shut his eyes and ears, quaking before 110 

The bubble of a Bigot's blasphemy? 

The faintly moving prow 
Divided Ocean's smoothness languidly. 
A landsman there reclined. 



* It is remarkable that few are more experimentally 
convinced of the doctrine of necessity than old sailors, 
who have seen much and various service. The peculiarly 
engaging and frank generosity of seafaring men probably 
is an effect of this cause. Those employed in small and ill- 
equipped trading vessels seem to possess this generosity in 
a purer degree than those of a King's ship. The habits 
of subjection and coercion imbued into the latter may 
suffice to explain the cause of the difference. 



(.0.) 



THE VOYAGE 

With lowering close-contracted brow 115 

And mouth updrawn at intervals 
As fearful of his fluctuating bent, 

His eyes wide-wandering round 

In insecure malignity, 
Rapacious, mean, cruel and cowardly, 120 

Casting upon the loveliness of day 

The murkiness of villainy . . . 
By other nurses than the battling storm, 

Friendship, Equality and Sufferance, 

His manhood had been cradled, — 125 

Inheritor to all the vice and fear 
Which Kings and laAvs and priests and conquerors spread 

On the ^voe-fertilized world. 

Yes! in the da^vn of life, 
^Vhen guileless confidence and unthinking love 130 

Dilate all hearts but those 
Which servitude or power has cased in steel. 
He bound himself to an unhappy woman; 
Not of those pure and heavenly links that Love 

Twines round a feeling to Freedom dear, 135 

But of vile gold, cank'ring the breast it binds. 
Corroding and inflaming every thought 

Till vain desire, remorse and fear 
Envenom all the being. 
Yet did this chain, tho' rankling in the soul 140 

Not bind the grosser body; he was wont 

All means to try of striving. 
To those above him, the most servile cringe 
That imorance e'er Q-ave to titled Vice 

Was simperingly yielded; 145 

To those beneath, the frown which Commerce darts 
On cast-off friends, unprofitably poor. 

Was less severe than his. 

( 102) 



THE VOYAGE 

There was another too . . , 

One of another mould. 150 

He had been cradled in the wildest storm 

Of Passion, and tho' now 
The feebler light of worn-out energies 

Shone on his soul, yet ever and anon 

A flash of tempests long past by 155 

Would wake to pristine visions. 
Now he was wrapt in a wild, woeful dream. 

Deeply his soul could love. 
And as he gazed on the boundless sea 
Chequered with sunbeams and with shade, 160 

Alternate to infinity. 
He fell into a dream. 

He dreamed that all he loved 
Across the shoreless wastes were voyaging 

By that unpitying landsman piloted, 165 

And that at length they came 

To a black and barren island rock. 

Barren the isle ... no egg 
Which sea mews leave upon the wildest shore. 

Barren the isle . . no blade 170 

Of grass, no seaweed, not the vilest thing 
For human nutriment. . . . 

He struggled with the pitiless landsman then 

But nerved tho' his frame with love, 

Quenchless, despairing love, i75 

It nought availed. . . strong Power 
Truth, love and courage vanquished. 
A rock was piled upon his feeble breast. 

All was subdued, but that 
Which is immortal, unsubduable. 180 

(103) 



THE VOYAGE 

He still continued dreaming .... 

The rock upon his bosom quenched not 

The frenzy and defiance of his eye. 
But the strong and coward landsman laughed to scorn 

His unprevailing fortitude, 185 

And in security of malice stabbed 

One who accompanied his voyagings. 

The blood gushed forth. The eye grew dim. 

The nerve relaxed, the life was gone. 

His smile of dastardly revenge 19° 

Glared upon dead frame. 
Then back the Victim flung his head 

In horror insupportable 

Upon the jagged rock whereon he lay, 

And human Nature paused awhile i95 

In pity to his woe. 

When he awaked to life 

She whom he loved was bending over him. 

Haggard her sunken eye. . . 

Bloodless her quivering lips. . . 200 

She bended to bestow 
The burning moisture from her feverish tongue 

To lengthen out his life 

Perhaps till succour came! . . 
But more her dear soft eyes in languid love 205 

When life's last gleam was flickering in decay 

The waning spark rekindled 
And the faint lingering kiss of her withered lips 
Mingled a rapture with his misery. 

A bleeding Sister lay 210 

Beside this wretched pair. 
And He the dastard of relentless soul 
In moody malice lowered over all. 

(104) 



THE VOYAGE 

And this is but a dream! 
For yonder — see! the port in sight! 215 

The vessel makes towards it! 

The sight of their safety then, 

And the hum of the populous town 
Awakened them from a night of horror 

To a day of secure delights. 220 

Lo! here a populous Town: 

Two dark rocks either side defend. 

The quiet water sleeps within 

Reflecting every roof and every mast. 

A populous town! it is a den 225 

Where wolves keep lambs to fatten on their blood. 
'Tis a distempered spot. Should there be one, 
Just, dauntless, rational, he would appear 

A madman to the rest. 
Yes! smooth-faced tyrants chartered by a Power 230 

Called King, who in the castellated keep 
Of a far distant land wears out his days 
Of miserable dotage, pace the quay 
And by the magic of that dreadful word. 
Hated tho' dreadful, shield their impotence, 235 

Their lies, their murders, and their robberies. 
See, where the sailor absent many years 
With Heaven in his rapture-speaking eyes 
Seeks the low cot where all his wealth reposes, 
To bring himself for joy, and his small store, 240 

Hard earned by years of peril and of toil, 
For comfort to his famine-wasted babes. 
Deep in the dark blue Sea the unmoving moon 
Gleams beautifully quiet. . . such a night 
Where the last kiss from Mary's quivering lips 245 

Unmanned him. To the well-known door he speeds 

(105) 



THE VOYAGE 

His faint hand pauses on the latch . . His heart 

Beats eagerly. — When suddenly the gang 

Dissolves his dream of rapture — no delay! 

No pity! unexpostulating power 85° 

Deals not in human feelings ... he is stript 

By those low slaves whose master's names inflict 

Curses more fell than even themselves would give; 

The Indian muslins and the Chinese toys, 

These for small gain, and those for boundless love, 255 

Thus carefully concealed, are torn away; 

The very handkerchief his Mary gave 

Which in unchanging faithfulness he wore 

Rent from his manly neck! his kindling eye 

Beamed vengeance, and the tyrant's manacles 260 

Shook on his struggling arm; "Where is my Wife? 

Where are my Children?" — close beside him stood 

A sleek and pampered town's man — "oh! your wife 

"Died this time year in the House of Industry 

"Your young ones all are dead, except one brat 265 

"Stubborn as you — Parish apprentice now." 

They have appropriated human life 

And human happiness, but these weigh nought 

In the nice balanced Politician's scale. 

Who finds that murder is expedient 270 

And that vile means can answer glorious ends. 

Wide Nature has outstretched her fertile Earth 

In commonage to all. . — but they have torn 

Her dearest offspring from her bleeding breast. 

Have disunited Liberty and life, 275 

Severed all right from duty, and confused 

Virtue with selfishness. — The grass-green hills, 

The fertile vallies and the limpid streams. 

The beach on the seashore, the sea itself, 

The very snow-clad mountain peaks, whose height 280 

(106) 



THE VOYAGE 

Forbids all human footstep . . the ravines 

Where cataracts have roared ere Monarchs were. 

Nature's fair Earth, and Heaven's untainted air 

Are all apportioned out. . . some bloated Lord 

Some priestly pilferer, or some Snake of Law, 285 

Some miserable mockery of a man. 

Some slave without a heart, looks over these 

And calls them Mine — in self-approving pride. 

The millionth of the produce of the vale 

He sets apart for charity. Vain fool! 290 

He gives in mercy, while stern Justice cries, 

"Be thou as one of them — resign thine hall 

Brilliant with murder's trophies, and the board 

Loaded with surfeiting viands, and the gems 

Which millions toil to bring thee. — Get thee hence 295 

And dub thyself a man, then dare to throw 

One act of usefulness, one thought of love 

Into the balance of thy past misdeeds!" 



(107) 



A Dialogue 
i8og 

DEATH 

Yes! my dagger is drenched with the blood o£ the brave. 

I have sped with Love's wings from the battlefield grave, 

Where Ambition is hushed neath the peacegiving sod. 

And slaves cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod. 

I offer a calm habitation to thee; 5 

Victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me? 

Drear and damp is my hall, but a mild Judge is there 

Who steeps in oblivion the brands of Despair. 

Nor a groan of regret, nor a sigh, nor a breath 

Dares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death; lo 

Nor the bowlings of envy resound thro' the gloom 

That shrouds in its mantle the slaves of the tomb. 

I offer a calm habitation to thee; 

Say, Victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me? 

MORTAL 

Mine eyelids are heavy, my soul seeks repose. 15 

It longs in thy arms to embosom its woes; 

It longs in that realm to deposit its load. 

Where no longer the scorpions of perfidy goad. 

Where the phantoms of Prejudice vanish away 

And Bigotry's bloodhounds lose scent of their prey. 20 

Yet tell me, dark Death, when thine Empire is o'er 

What awaits on futurity's mist-circled shore? 

DEATH 

Cease, cease, wayward mortal! I dare not unveil 
The shadows that float on eternity's vale. 

(,08) 



A DIALOGUE 

What thinkest thou will wait thee? A *Spirit of Love 25 

That will hail thy blest advent to mansions above? 

For Love, mortal! gleams thro' the gloom of my sway 

And the clouds that surround me fly fast at its ray. 

Hast thou loved? — then depart from these regions of hate 

And in slumber with me quench the arrows of fate 30 

That canker and burn in the wounds of a heart 

That urges its sorrows with me to depart. 

I offer a calm habitation to thee; 

Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me? 

MORTAL 

Oh sweet is thy slumber, and sweeter the ray 35 

Which after thy night introduces the day! 

How soft, how persuasive, self-interest's breath 

Tho' it floats to mine ear from the bosom of Death! 

I hoped that I quite was forgotten by all, 

Yet a lingering friend may be grieved at my fall, 40 

And virtue forbids, tho' I languish to die. 

When Departure might heave Virtue's breast with a sigh. 

Yet Death! oh! my friend, snatch this form to thy shrine 

And I fear, dear destroyer, I shall not repine. 

* The author begs to be understood by this expression 
neither to mean the Creator of the Universe, nor the 
Christian Deity. When this little poem was written the 
line stood thus, "What waits for the good?" but he has 
altered it on transcription, because however his feelings 
may love to linger on a future state of Happiness, neither 
Justice, reason nor passion can reconcile to his belief that 
the crimes of this life, equally necessary and inevitable as 
its virtues, should be punished in another: 
"Earth in itself 
"Contains at once the evil and the cure 
"And all sufficing Nature can chastize 
"Those who transgress her law." 



(109) 



How eloquent are eyes! 
1810 

How eloquent are eyes! 
Not the rapt Poet's frenzied lay, 
When the soul's wildest feelings stray, 

Can speak so well as they. 

How eloquent are eyes! 5 

Not music's most impassioned note, 
On which love's warmest fervours float, 

Like they bid rapture rise. 

Love! look thus again. 
That your look may light a waste of years 10 

Darting the beam that conquers cares 

Thro' the cold shower of tears! 

Love! look thus again. 
That Time the victor as he flies 
May pause to gaze upon thine eyes, 15 

A victor then in vain! — 

Yet no! arrest not Time, 

For Time, to others dear, we spurn, 

When Time shall be no more we burn 

When Love meets full return. 20 

Ah no! arrest not Time. 
Fast let him fly on eagle wing. 
Nor pause till Heaven's unfading spring 
Breathes round its holy clime. 

Yet quench that thrilling gaze 25 

Which passionate Friendship arms with fire, 

(.10) 



HOW ELOQUENT ARE EYEs! 

For what will eloquent eyes inspire 

But feverish, false desire? 
Quench then that thrilling gaze 
For age may freeze the tremulous joy; 30 

But age can never love destroy. 

It lives to better days. 

Age cannot love destroy. 
Can perfidy then blight its flower 
Even when in most unwary hour 35 

It blooms in fancy's bower? 

Age cannot love destroy. 
Can slighted vows then rend the shrine 
On which its chastened splendours shine 

Around a dream of joy? 40 



(111) 



O^O^^ts.^iS'OiS-^iS-C^^ 



Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 
1810 

Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 

Live not thro' the lapse of time; 
Love's rose a host of thorns invest, 

And ungenial is the clime 

Where its blossoms blow. 5 

Youth says — the purple flowers are mine 

That fade the while they glow. 

Dear the boon to Fancy given, 

Retracted while 'tis granted. 
Sweet the rose that breathes in Heaven 10 

Altho' on Earth 'tis planted, 
Where its blossoms blow. 
Where by the frosts its leaves are riven 

That fade the while they glow. 

The pure soul lives that heart within 15 

Which age cannot remove 
If undefiled by tainting sin, — 

A sanctuary of love 

Where its blossoms blow. 
Where, in this unsullied shrine, 20 

They fade not while they glow. 



(112) 



To the Moonbeam 

September 25. i8op 

Moonbeam! leave the shadowy dale 

To cool this burning brow — 
Moonbeam, why art thou so pale 
As thou glidest along the midnight vale 

Where dewy flowrets grow? 5 

Is it to mimic me? 

Ah, that can never be; 

For thy path is bright 

And the clouds are light 
That at intervals shadow the star-studded night. 10 

Now all is deathy still on Earth, 

Nature's tired frame reposes; 
Yet ere the golden morning's birth 

Its radiant gates uncloses. 

Flies forth her balmy breath; 15 

But mine is the midnight of death, 

And Nature's morn 

To my bosom forlorn 
Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn. 

Wretch! suppress the glare of madness 20 

Struggling in thine haggard eye, 
For the keenest throb of sadness, 

Pale despair's most sickening sigh. 

Is but to mimic me. 



TO THE MOONBEAM 

But that can never be 25 

When the darkness of care 
And the death of despair 
Seem in my breast but joys to the pangs that rankle there. 



(•■4) 



Poems to Mary 

ADVERTISEMENT 

The few poems immediately following are selected from 
many written during three weeks of an entrancement 

caused by hearing Mary's story 1 hope that the delicate 

and discriminating genius of the friend who related it to 
me will allow the publication of the heart-breaking facts 
under the title of Leonora. — For myself at that time: 
nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid 
amarem, amans amare.* 

Mary died three months before I heard her tale. — 



•Confess. St. Augustin. 



(■'5) 



November 1810 
To Mary I 



Dear girl! thou art wildered by madness, 

Yet do not look so, sweet. 
I could share in the sigh of thy sadness. 

Thy woe my soul could meet. 

I loved a heart sincerely. 5 

Yes! dear it was to mine; 
Yet, Mary, I love more dearly 

One tender look of thine. 

Oh! do not say that Heaven 

Will frown on errors past; 10 

Thy faults are all forgiven. 

Thy Virtues ever last.* 

The cup with death o'erflowing 

I'll drink, fair girl, to thee. 
For when the storm is blowing 15 

To shelter we may flee. 



* This opinion is of all others the most deeply rooted in 
my conviction. The enquirer will laugh at it as a dream, 
the Christian will abhor it as a blasphemy — Mary, who 
repeatedly attempted suicide, yet was unwilling to die 
alone. — Nor is it probable that she would, had I instead 
of my friend been subjected to the trial of sitting a sum- 
mer night by her side — whilst two glasses of poison stood 
on the table, and she folded me to her tremulous bosom 
in extasies of friendship and despair! — [What are the 
Romances of Leadenhall Str. to this of real life?] 



(>>6) 



POEMS TO MARY 

Thou canst not bear to languish 

In this frail chain of clay, 
And I am tired of anguish. 

Love! let us haste away! 20 

Like thee, I fear to weather 

Death's darksome wave alone. 
We'll take the voyage together. 

Come, Mary! let's begone. 

Strange mists my woe efface, love, 25 

And thou art pale in Death. . . . 
Give one, one last embrace, love. 

And we resign our breath. 



(i>7) 



^iS'^^CtS'^iS'^iS-^iS-^iS'O 



To Mary II 



Fair one! calm that bursting heart .... 

Dares then fate to frown on thee. 
Lovely, spotless, as thou art, 

Tho' its worst poison lights on me? 

Then dry that tear; 5 

Thou needest not fear 
These woes when thy limbs are cold on the bier. 

Start not from winter's breathing, dearest, 

Tho' bleak is yonder hill . , . 
As perjured love the blast thou fearest lo 

Is not half so deadly chill; 
Like these winds that blow 
No remorse does it know 
And colder it strikes than the drivine snow. 



*C3 



The tomb is damp and dark and low, 15 

Yet with thee the tomb I do not dread. 
There is not a place of frightful woe 

Where with thee I'd refuse to lay my head . . . 
But our souls shall not sleep 
In the grave damp and deep 20 

But in love and devotion their holy day keep.* 

* The expression devotion, is not used in a religious 
sense; for which abuse of this lovely word, few have a 
greater horror than the Author. 



(.18) 



^IS'^IS-^IS'OIS'C^^IS-OIS'O 



To Mary III 



Mary, Mary! art thou gone 

To sleep in thine earthy cell? 
Presses thy breast the death-cold stone? 
Pours none the tear, the sob, the groan, 
Where murdered virtue sleeps alone 5 

Where its first glory fell? 

Mary, Mary, past is past! 

I submit in silence to fate's decree, 
Tho' the tear of distraction gushes fast 
And at night when the lank reeds hiss in the blast lo 

My spirit mourns in sympathy. 

Thou wert more fair in mind than are 

The fabled heavenly train, 
But thine was the pang of corroding care, 
Thine, cold contempt and lone despair 15 

And thwarted love — more hard to bear . . . 
And I — wretch! — weep that such they were. 

And I. . . . still drag my chain. 

Thou wert but born to weep, to die, 

To feel dissolved the dearest tie — 20 

Its fragments by the pityless world 

Adown the blast of fortune hurl'd 

To strive with envy's wreckful storm. 
Thou wert but born to weep and die. 
Nor could thy ceaseless misery, 25 

Nor heavenly virtues aught avail, 

(>'9) 



POEMS TO MARY 

Nor taintless innocence prevail 

With the world's slaves thy love to spare. 

Nor the magic unearthly atmosphere 

That wrapt thine eternal form. 3° 

Such, loveliest Mary, was thy fate. 

And such is Virtue's doom .... 
Contempt, neglect and hatred wait 
Where yawns a wide and dreary gate 

To drag its votaries to the tomb. 35 

Sweet flower! that blooms amid the weeds 
Where the dank serpent, interest, feeds! 



(120) 



^^C^^iS'^iS'^iS'^iS-^iS'C 



To the Lover of Mary 



Drink the exhaustless moonbeam where its glare 
Wanly lights murdered virtue's funeral 
And tremulous sheds on the corpse-shrouding pall 

A languid, languid flare 

Hide thee, poor Wretch, where yonder baleful yew 5 
Sheds o'er the clay that now is tenantless — 
Whose spirit once thrilled to thy warm caress — 

Its deadly, deadly dew. 
The moon-ray will not quench thy misery, 
But the yew's death-drops will bring peace to thee, lo 
And yonder clay-cold grave thy bridal bed shall be. 

And since the Spirit dear that breathes of Heaven 
Has burst the powerless bondage of its clay 
And soars an Angel to eternal day. 

Purged of its earthly leaven, 15 

Thy yearnings now shall bend thee to the tomb. 
Oblivion blot a life without a stain, 
And death's cold hand round thy heart's ceaseless pain 

Enfold its veil of gloom. 
The wounds shall close of Misery's scorpion goad 20 
When Mary greets thee in her blest abode 
And worships holy Love, in purity thy God. 

O this were joy! and such as none would fear 

To purchase by a life of passing woe. 

For on this earth the sickly flowers that glow 25 

Breathe of perfection there. 
Yet live — for others barter thine own bliss, 

(.2.) 



POEMS TO MARY 

And living shew what towering Virtue dares 
To accomplish even in this vale of tears: 

Turn Hell to Paradise, 30 

And spurning selfish joy soar high above 
The Heaven of Heavens, let ever eternal *love 
Despised awhile, thy sense of holier *Virtue prove. 



* As if they were not synonimousi 



( 122) 



Dares the Lama 
1810 

Dares the Lama, most fleet of the Sons of the Wind, 

The Lion to rouse from his lair? 
When the tyger awakes, can the fast-fleeting hind 

Repose trust in his footsteps of air? 
No — abandoned it sinks in helpless despair; 5 

The monster transfixes his prey; 

On the sand flows its life-blood away, 
And the rocks and the woods to the death-yells reply. 
Protracting the horrible harmony. 

Yet the fowl of the desart when danger encroaches 10 

Dares dreadless to perish, defending her brood, 
Tho' the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches, 

Thirsting — aye, thirsting for blood — 
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food. 

Yet more lenient, more gentle, than they; 15 

For hunger, not glory, the prey 
Must perish — revenge does not howl o'er the dead. 
Nor ambition with fame bind the murderer's head. 

Tho' weak as the Lama that bounds on the Mountains 

And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, 20 
Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains, 

Tho' a fiercer than tygers is there, 
Tho' more frightful than death it scatters despair. 

And its shadow, eclipsing the day. 

Spreads the darkness of deepest dismay 25 

( 123) 



DARES THE LAMA 

O'er the withered and withering nations around 
And the war-mangled corpses that rot on the ground. 

They came to the fountain to draw from its stream 

Waves too poisonously lovely for mortals to see; 
They basked for awhile in the love-darting beam 3° 

Then perished — and perished like me, 
For in vain from the grasp of Religion I flee. 

The most tenderly loved of my soul 

Are slaves to its chilling control. . . 
It pursues me. It blasts me. Oh! where shall I fly? 35 
What remains but to curse it, to curse it and die? 



(124) 



I will kneel at thine altar 

i8op 

I will kneel at thine altar, will crown thee with bays. 

Whether God, Love or Virtue thou art, 
Thou shalt live . . . aye! more long than these perishing lays 

Thou shalt live in this high-beating heart. 
Dear love! from its life-strings thou never shall part, 5 

Tho' Prejudice clanking her chain, 

Tho' Interest groaning in gain, 
May tell me thou closest to Heaven the door. 
May tell me that thine is the way to be poor. 

The victim of merciless tyranny's power lo 

May smile at his chains if with thee; 
The most sense-enslaved loiterer in Passion's sweet bower 

Is a wretch if unhallowed by thee. 
Thine, thine is the bond that alone binds the free. 

Can the free worship bondage? nay, more, 15 

What they feel not, believe not, adore — 
What if felt, if believed, if existing must give 
To thee to create, to eternize, to live — 

For Religion more keen than the blasts of the North 

Darts its frost thro' the self-palsied soul; 20 

Its slaves on the work of destruction go forth; 

The divinest emotions that roll 
Submit — to the rod of its impious control. 

At the venemous blast of its breath. 

Love, concord, lies gasping in death, 25 

( ^25) 



I WILL KNEEL AT THINE ALTAR 

Philanthropy utters a war-drowned cry 
And selfishness, conquering, cries Victory! 

Can we, then, thus tame, thus impassive behold 

That alone whence our life springs destroyed? 
Shall Prejudice, Priestcraft, Opinion and Gold — 30 

Every passion with interest alloyed — 
Where Love ought to reign, fill the desolate void? 

But the Avenger arises, the throne 

Of selfishness totters, its groan 
Shakes the nations. — It falls, love seizes the sway; 35 
The sceptre it bears unresisted away. 



(.26) 



O^OiS'OiS'^ts.O^^iS'^iS'^ 



Fragment of a Poem 

the original idea o£ which was suggested by the 

cowardly and infamous bombardment 

of Copenhagen 

The ice mountains echo, the Baltic, the Ocean 
Where cold sits enthroned on its solium of snow: 

Even Spitzbergen perceives the terrific commotion. 

The roar floats on the whirlwinds of sleet as they blow, 
Blood clots with the streams as half frozen they flow, 5 

Lurid flame o'er the cities the meteors of war 

And mix their deep gleam with the bright polar glare. 

Yes! the arms of Britannia victorious are bearing 
Fame, triumph and terror wherever they spread. 

Her Lion his crest o'er the nations is rearing, lo 

Ruin follows ... it tramples the dying and dead . . . 
But her countrymen fall . . . the bloodreeking bed 

Of the battle-slain sends a complaint-breathing sigh; 

It is mixed with the shoutings of victory. 

I see the lone female. The sun is descending 15 

Dank carnage-smoke sheds an ensanguining glare. 

Night its shades in the orient earlier is blending 
Yet the light faintly marks a wild maniac's stare. 
She lists to the death shrieks that came on the air. 

The pride of her heart to her bosom she prest, 20 

Then sunk on his form in the sleep of the blest. 



(127) 



CiS-^tS'CiS-ClS'C&OiS'CiS'O 



On an Icicle that clung to the 
grass o£ a grave 

i8op 

O take the pure gem to where Southernly Breezes 
Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair, 

In which the warm current of love never freezes 
As it circulates freely and shamelessly there, 
Which, untainted by crime, unpolluted by care, 5 

Might dissolve this dim ice-drop, might bid it arise. 

Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies. 

For I found the pure gem when the daybeam returning 
Ineffectual gleams on the snow-spangled plain, 

When to others the longed-for arrival of morning lo 

Brings relief to long night-dreams of soul-racking pain. 
But regret is an insult. To grieve is in vain. 

And why should we grieve that a spirit so fair 

Sought Heaven, to meet with its Kindred there? 

Yet 'twas some Angel of kindness descending 15 

To share in the load of Mortality's woe. 

Who, over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending. 
Bade sympathy's tenderest tear-drops to flow 
And consigned the rich gift to the Sister of Snow; 

And if Angels can weep, sure I may repine 20 

And shed tear-drops, tho' frozen to ice, on thy shrine. 



(128) 



Cold are the blasts 
1808 

Cold are the Blasts when December is howling. 
Chill are the damps on a dying friend's brow, 

Stern is the Ocean when tempests are rolling, 
Sad is the grave where a brother lies low, 

But chillier is scorn from the false one that loved thee, 5 

More stern is the sneer from the friend that has proved 
thee. 

More sad are the tears when these sorrows have moved 
thee. 
That, envenomed by wildest delirium, flow. 

And alas! thou, Louisa, hast felt all this horror! . . 

Full long the fallen Victim contended with fate 10 

Till — a destitute outcast abandoned to sorrow — 

She sought her babe's food at her miner's gate. 
Another had charmed the remorseless betrayer; 
He turned laughing away from her anguish-fraught prayer. 
She spoke not, but wringing the rain from her hair, 15 

Took the rough mountain path, tho' the hour was late. 

On the cloud-shrouded summit of dark Penmanmawr 

The form of the wasted Louisa reclined. 
She shrieked to the ravens loud croaking afar. 

She sighed to the gusts of the wild sweeping wind. — 20 
"Ye storms o'er the peak of the lone mountain soaring. 
Ye clouds with the thunder-winged tempest-shafts lowering, 
Thou wrath of black Heaven, I blame not thy pouring, 
But thee, cruel Henry, I call thee unkind." 

(129) 



COLD ARE THE BLASTS 

Then she wreathed a wild crown from the flowers of the 
mountain, 25 

And deliriously laughing the heath twigs entwined. 
She bedewed it with tear drops, then leaned o'er the 
fountain 

And cast it a prey to the wild sweeping wind. 
"Ah! go," she exclaimed, "where the tempest is yelling. 
'Tis unkind to be cast on the sea that is swelling — 30 

But I left, a pityless outcast, my dwelling. 

My garments are torn — so they say is my mind." 

Not long lived Louisa. — And over her grave 
Waved the desolate limbs of a storm-blasted yew. 

Around it no demons or ghosts dare to rave, 35 

But spirits of love steep her slumbers in dew; 

Then stay thy swift steps mid the dark mountain heather, 

Tho' bleak be the scene and severe be the weather. 

For perfidy, traveller, cannot bereave her 

Of the tears to the tombs of the innocent due. 40 



(130) 



o«jo«?0'ao«?o«?05&o*^' 



Henry and Louisa^ 

a Poem 
in two parts 

I Sop 



She died for love — and he for glory 



The Parting 

Part the First 
Scene — England 



Where are the Heroes? sunk in death they lie. 

What toiled they for? titles and wealth and fame. 
But the wide Heaven is now their canopy, 

And legal murderers their loftiest name. 
Enshrined on brass their glory and their shame 

What tho' torn Peace and martyred Freedom see? 

What tho' to most remote posterity 
Their names, their selfishness for ay enscrolled, 
A shuddering world's blood-boltered eyes behold, 

Mocking mankind's unbettered misery? 



* The stanza of this Poem is radically that of Spencer 
altho' I suffered myself at the time of writing it to be led 
into occasional deviations. These defects I do not alter now, 
being unwilling to offer any outrage to the living portrai- 
ture of my own mind; bad as it may be pronounced. 



(>30 



HENRY AND LOUISA 



Can this perfection give, can valour prove 
One wish for others' bliss, one throb of love . 



II 



Yet darest thou boast thyself superior. — Thou! 

Vile worm! whom lovely woman deigns to bless, 
And, meanly selfish, bask in glory's glow, 15 

Rending the soul-spun ties of tenderness 
Where all desires rise for thine happiness? 

Canst thou boast thus and hope to be forgiven? 
Oh! when thou started'st from her last caress, 

From purest love by vulgar Glory driven, 20 

Couldst thou have e'er deserved, if thou resigned'st. Heaven? 



And shadowed by affection's purple wing 

Bid thee forget how Time's fast footstep sped: 

Would die in peace when thou wert mingled with the dead. 

VI 

Had Glory's fire consumed each tender tie 25 

That links to love the Heaven-aspiring soul. 
Could not that voice, quivering in agony. 

That struggling pale resolve that dared control 
Passion's wild flood when wildest it did roll. 
Could not impassioned tenderness that burst 3° 

Cold prudery's bondage, owning all it felt — 
Could not these, warrior, quench thy battle thirst. 
Nought this availed thine iron-bound breast to melt. 
To make thy footsteps pause where love and freedom dwelt? 

VII 

Yes! every soul-nerve vibrated ... a space 35 

Enchained in speechless awe the warrior stood. 



(132) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Superior reason, Virtue, manner, grace, 

Claimed for a space their rights ... in varying mood 
Before her lovely eyes in thought he stood 
Whilst Glory's train flashed on his mental eye 40 

Which wandered wildly where the fight's red flood, 
The crash of death, the storm of Victory, 
Roll round the hopes of love that only breathe to die. 

VIII 

Then she exclaimed as, love-nerved, sense returned, 

"Go . . mingle in thy country's battle tide ... 45 

Forget that love's pale torch hath ever burned. 

Until thou meetest me clothed in Victor-pride 
May guardian spirits keep thee . . . far and wide 

O'er the red regions of the day-scorched zone 
For glory seek . . but here thou wilt abide, 50 

Here — in this breast. Thou wilt abide alone. 
I will thine empire be. My heart shall be thy throne." 

IX 

When Princes at fair Reason's bidding bend. 

Resigning power for Virtue's fadeless meed. 
Or Spirits of Heaven to man submission lend, 55 

The debt of gratitude is great indeed; 
In vain the heart its thankfulness to prove 

Aye might attempt to do the debt away. 
Yet what is this compared to Woman's love. 

Dear Woman's love, the dawn of Virtue's day, 60 

The bliss-inspiring beam, the soul-illuming ray? 

X 

Then Henry spoke as he checked the rising tear, 
"That I have loved thee and must love for ever 

Heaven is a witness — Heaven to whom are dear 

The hearts that earthly chances cannot sever, 65 

(133) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Where bloom the flowers that cease to blossom never. 

Religion sanctifies the cause, I go 
To execute its vengeance. Heaven will give 

To me (so whispers hope) to quell the foe. 
Heaven gives the good to conquer and to live, 70 

And thou shalt — next to God — his votive heart receive. 

XI 

Say, is not he the Tyrant of the World 
And are not we the injured and the brave? 

Unmoved shall we behold his flag unfurled. 

Flouting with impious Wing Religion's grave, 75 

Triumphant gleaming o'er the passive wave, 

Nor raise an arm, nor one short pleasure yield 
The boon of immortality to save? 

Hope is our tempered lance, faith is our shield; 

Conquest or death for these wait on the gory field. 80 

XII 

Even at that hour when hostile myriads clash 

And terrible death shakes his resistless dart. 
Mingling wild wailings with the battle crash. 

Then thou and Heaven shall share this votive heart. 
When from pale dissolution's grasp I start 85 

(If Heaven so wills) even then will I be thine. 
Nor can the whelming tomb have power to part 

From all it loves a heart that loves like mine. 
From thee . . round whom its hopes, its joys, its fears 
entwine." 

XIII 

A sicklier tint crept o'er Louisa's cheek .... 90 

"But thou art dearer far to me than all 

(134) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

That fancy's visions feign, or tongue can speak. 

Yesl may I die, and be that death eternal, 
When other thoughts but thee my soul enthrall. 

The joys of Heaven I prize thee far above, 95 

Thee, dearest, will my Soul its Saviour call. 
My faith is thine . . my faith-gained heaven, thy love; 
My Hell, when cruel fates thee from these arms remove. 

XIV 

Farewell" . . . she spoke. The warrior's war-steeled breast. 

Quivering in feeling's agonized excess, 100 

Scarce drew its breath, to sickliness oppressed 

By mingled self-reproach and tenderness; 
He dared not speak, but rushed from her caress. 

The sunny glades; the little birds of spring 
Twittering from every garlanded recess, 105 

Returning verdure's joy that seem'd to sing 
Whilst woe with stern hand smote his every mental string; 

XV 

The fragrant dew-mists from the Ivied Thorn 

Whose form o'ershadowed love's most blissful boAver, 
Where oft would fly the tranquil time of morn, no 

Or swifter urge its flight dear evening's power. 
When purple twilight in the East would lower 

And the amorous starbeam kiss the loveliest form 
That ever bruised a pleasure-fainting flower 

Whose emanative eyebeam, thrilling, warm, 115 

Around her sacred presence shed a rapturing charm; 

XVI 

Each object so beloved, each varied tone 
Of heavenly feeling that can never die, 

(135) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Each little throb his heart had ever known. 

Impetuous rushed on fainting memory. 120 

Yet not alone for parted extacy. 

To which he now must bid a long adieu, 
Started the bitter tear or burst the sigh; 

In all the pangs that, spite concealment, grew 

O'er his Louisa's peace, a deeper soul-pang drew. 125 

XVII 

The balmy breath of soul-reviving dawn 

That kissed the bosom of the waveless lake, 
Scented with spring-flowers, o'er the level lawn 

Struck on his sense, to woe scarce yet awake. 
He felt its still reproach, — the upland brake 130 

Rustled beneath his war-steed's eager prance, 
Hastening to Egypt's shore his way to take, 

But swifter hastening to dispel the trance 
Of grief, he hurried on, smothering the last sad glance. 

XVIII 

Sweet flower! in dereliction's solitude i35 

That scatterest perfume to the unheeding gale 
And in the grove's unconscious quietude 

Murmurest (thyself scarce conscious) thy sad tale — 
Sure it is subject for the Poet's wail, 

Tho' faint, that one so worthy to be prized, 140 

The fairest flower of the loveliest vale. 

To withering Glory should be sacrificed. 
That hides his hateful form in Virtue's garb disguised. 

XIX 

Religion! hated cause of all the woe 

That makes the world this wilderness. Thou spring 145 

(136) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Whence terror, pride, revenge and perfidy flow, 
The curses, which thy pampered minions bring. 

On thee shall Virtue's votary fear to fling? 
And thou, dear Love! thy tender ties to sever. 

To drown in shouts thy bliss-fraught murmuring, 150 

Ceaseless shall selfish Prejudice endeavour? 

Shall she succeed? — oh no, whilst I live, never, never! 

XX 

For by the wrongs that flaming deep 

Within this bosom's agony. 
That dry the source whence others weep, — 155 

I swear that thou shalt die! 



(137) 



,^^^IS'C^^13>^^^IS>^^^ 



Henry and Louisa 

The Meeting 
Part Second 



'Tis night . . No planet's brilliance dares to light 

The dim and battle-blushing scenery. 
Friends, mixed with foes, urge unremitting fight 

Beneath War's suffocating canopy, 160 

And, as sulphureous meteors fire the sky, 

Fast flash the deathful thunderbolts of War, 
Whilst groans unite in frightful harmony 

And wakened vultures shrieking from afar 
Scent their half-murdered prey amid the battle's jar. 165 

II 

Now had the Genius of the south, sublime 
On mighty Atlas' tempest-cinctured throne, 

Looked over Afric's desolated clime, 

Deep wept at slavery's everlasting moan 

And his most dear-beloved nation's groan. 170 

The Boreal whirlwind's shadowy wings that sweep 
The veined bosom of the northern world 

That hears contending thunders on the deep. 
Sees hostile flags on Egypt's strand unfurled. 

Brings Egypt's faintest groan to waste and ruin hurled. 175 

III 

Is this then all that sweeps the midnight sand? 
Tells the wild blast no tales of deeper woe? 



("38) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Does war alone pollute the unhappy land? 

No — the low, fluttering and the hectic glow 
Of hope, whose sickly flowret scarce can blow, 180 

Chilled by the ice-blast of intense despair, 
Anguish that dries the big tear ere it flow. 
And Maniac love, that sits by the beacon's glare 
With eyes on nothing fixed, dim like a mist-clothed star. 

IV 

No fear save one could daunt her — Ocean's wave, 185 

Bearing Britannia's hired asassins on 
To victory's shame or an unhonored grave. 

Beheld Louisa, mid an host, alone. 
The womanly dress that veiled her fair form is gone, 

Gone is the timid wandering of her eye, 190 

Pale firmness nerved her anguished heart to stone; 

The sense of shame, the flush of modesty, 
By stern resolve were quenched or only glowed to die. 



"Where is my love! — my Henry — is he dead?" 

Half-drowned in smothered anguish wildly burst 195 
From her parched lips — "is my ador'd one dead? 

Knows none my Henry? War! thou source accurst. 
In whose red blood I see these sands immerst. 

Hast thou quite whelmed compassion's tearful spring 
Where thy fierce tide rolls to slake Glory's thirst? 200 

Perhaps thou. Warrior, some kind word dost bring 
From my poor Henry's lips when Death its shade did fling." 

VI 

A tear of pity dimmed the Warrior's gaze. 
"I know him not, sweet maiden, yet the fight, 



(139) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

That casts on Britain's fame a brighter blaze, 205 

Should spare all yours, if ought I guess aright. 

But ah! by yonder flash of sulphurous light. 
The dear loved work of battle has begun. 

Fame calls her votaries." He fled. The night 

Had far advanced before the fray was done; 210 

Scarce sunk the roar of war before the rising Sun. 

VII 

But sight of wilder grief where slept the dead 

Was witnessed by the morn's returning glow, 
When frantic o'er the waste Louisa sped 

To drink her dying lover's latest vow: 215 

Sighed mid her locks the sea-gales as they blew. 

Bearing along faint shrieks of dying men 
As if they sympathized with her deep woe. 

Silent she paused a space, and then again 
New-nerved by fear and hope sprang wild across the plain. 

VIII 

See where she stops again! ... a ruin's shade 

Darkens his fading lineaments, his cheek 
On which remorseful pain is deep pourtrayed 

Glares, death-convulsed and ghastly. Utterings break — 
Shuddering, unformed — ; his tongue essays to speak. 225 

Thus low he lies! poor Henry! where is now 
Thy dear, deserted love? Is there no friend 

To bathe with tears that anguish-burning brow. 
None comfort in this fearful hour to lend. 
When to remorseful grief thy parting spirits bend? 230 

IX 

Yes! pain had steeped each dying limb in flame. 
When, mad with mingled hope and pale dismay, 

(140) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

Fleet as the wild deer his Louisa came, 

Nerved by distraction. — A pale tremulous ray 

Flashed on her eyes from the expiring day. 235 

Life for a space rushed to his fainting breast. 

The breathing form of love-entwined clay, 
In motionless rapture, pale Louisa prest 

And, stung by maddening hope, in tears her bliss exprest. 



Yet was the transport wavering . . . the dew 240 

Of bodily pain that bathed his pallid brow. 
The pangs that thro' his anguished members flew, 

Tho' half subdued by Love's returning glow. 
Doubt, mixed with lingering hope, must needs bestow. 

Then she exclaimed — "Love, I have sought thee far; 
Whence our own Albion's milder sea gales blow, 

To this stern scene of fame-aspiring war; 
Thro' waves of danger past thou wert my polar star. 

XI 

Live then, dear source of life! and let the ray 

Which lights thy kindling eyebeam softly speak 250 

That thou hast loved when I was far away — 

Yet thou art pale. Death's hectic lights thy cheek. 
Oh! if one moment fate the chain should break 

Which binds thy soul unchangeably to mine: 
Another moment's pain fate dare not wreak. 255 

Another moment I am ever thine! 

Love, turn those eyes on me! ah, death has dimmed their 
shine." 

XII 

Ceased her voice. The accents mild 
In frightful stillness died away. 

(141) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

More sweet than Memnon's plainings wild 260 

That float upon the morning ray 

Died every sound , . save when 

At distance o'er the plain 
Britannia's legions swiftly sweeping, 
Glory's ensanguined harvest reaping, 265 

Mowed down the field of men, 
And the silent ruins, crumbling nigh. 
With echoes low prolonged the cry 
Of mingled defeat and victory. 

XIII 

More low, more faint, yet far more dread, 270 

Arose the expiring warrior's groan. 
Stretched on the sand, his bloody bed. 
In agonized death was Henry laid 

But he did not fall alone . . . 

Why then that anguished sigh 275 

Which seems to tear the vital tie. 
Fiercer than death, more fell 

Than tyranny, contempt or hate? 

Why does that breast with horror swell 
Which ought to triumph over fate? 280 

Why? ask the pallid, griefworn mien 

Of poor Louisa, let it speak: 
But her firm heart would sooner break 

Than doubt the soul where love had been. 

XIV 

Now, now he dies! his parting breath, 285 

The sulphurous gust of battle bears. 
The shriek, the groan, the gasp of death, 

Unmoved, Louisa hears. 
And a smile of triumph lights her eye 

(142) 



HENRY AND LOUISA 

With more than mortal radiancy. — 290 

Sacred to Love a deed is done! — 
Gleams thro' battle clouds the Sun, 
Gleams it on all that's good and fair 
Stretched on the Earth to moulder there. 

Shall Virtue perish? No; 295 

Superior to Religion's tie, 

Emancipate from misery, 

Despising self, their souls can know 

All the delight love can bestow 

When Glory's phantom fades away 300 

Before Affection's purer ray. 

When tyrants cease to wield the rod 

And slaves to tremble at their nod. 

XV 

Then near the stunted palms that shroud 

The spot from which their spirits fled 305 

Shall pause the human hounds of blood 

And own a secret dread. 
There shall the victor's steel-clad brow, 
Tho' flushed by conquest's crimson glow. 

Be changed with inward fear; 310 

There, stern and steady by long command, 
The pomp-fed despot's sceptered hand 

Shall shake as if death were near. 
Whilst the lone captive in his train 
Feels comfort as he shakes his chain. 3^5 



(143) 



>^iS'OiS>^iS'^iS>OiS'^!S'^iS'C 



A Translation of 
The Marsellois Hymn 



Haste to battle, Patriot Band! 

A day of Glory dawns on thee! 
Against thy rights is raised an hand: — 

The bloodred hand of tyranny! 
See! the ferocious slaves of power 5 

Across the wasted country scour, 
And in thy very arms destroy 
The pledges of thy nuptial joy — 

Thine unresisting family! 

Chorus 
Then, citizens, form in battle array, lo 

For this is the dawn of a glorious day. 
March, march, fearless of danger and toil. 
And the rank gore of tyrants shall water your soil! 

2 

What wills the coward, traitorous train 

Of Kings, whose trade is perfidy? 15 

For whom is forged this hateful chain, 

For whom prepared this slavery? 
For you. On you their vengeance rests . . . 
What transports ought to thrill your breasts! 
Frenchmen! this unhallowed train, 20 

To ancient woe would bind again 

Those souls whom valour has made free! 
Chorus &c. 

(144) 



A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSELLOIS HYMN 
3 

What! shall foreign bands compel 

Us to the laws of tyranny? 
Shall hired soldiers hope to quell 25 

The arm upraised for liberty? 
Great God! by these united arms 
Shall despots, their own alarms, 
Pass neath the yoke made for our head! 
Yea! pomp-fed Kings shall quake with dread — 30 

These masters of Earth's destiny! 
Chorus &c. 



Tremble, Kings! despised of Man! 

Ye traitors to your country — 
Tremble! your parricidal plan 

At length shall meet its destiny. 35 

We all are soldiers fit for fight. 
But if we sink in glory's night 
Our Mother Earth will give ye new 
The brilliant pathway to pursue 

That leads to Death or Victory! 40 

Chorus &c. 



Frenchmen! on the guilty brave 

Pour your vengeful energy. — 
Yet in your triumph, pitying save 

The unwilling slaves of tyranny; 
But let the gore-stained despots bleed, 45 

Be death fell Boullie's bloodhound-meed; 
Chase those unnatural fiends away 



(145) 



A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSELLOIS HYMN 



Who on their mothers vitals prey 
With more than tyger cruelty! 
Chorus &c. 



Sacred Patriotism! uphold 50 

The avenging bands who fight with thee; 

And thou, more dear than meaner gold. 
Smile on our efforts, Liberty! 

Where conquest's crimson streamers wave. 

Haste thou to the happy brave, 55 

Where at our feet thy dying foes 

See as their failing eyes unclose 
Our glory and thy Victory! 



(.46) 



^J^0«&^«&0«&0<50«^©^ 



Written in very early youth 



I'll lay me down by the church-yard tree 

And resign me to my destiny; 

I'll bathe my brow with the poison dew 

That falls from yonder deadly yew, 

And, if it steal my soul away, 5 

To bid it wake in realms of day. 

Spring's sweetest flowers shall never be 

So dear to gratitude and me! 

Earthborn glory cannot breathe 

Within the damp recess of death; lo 

Avarice, Envy, Lust, Revenge, 

Suffer there a fearful change; 

All that grandeur ever gave 

Moulders in the silent grave. 

Oh! that I slept near yonder yew, 15 

That this tired frame misht moulder too! 



*&' 



Yet Pleasure's folly is not mine. 
No votarist, I, at Glory's shrine; 
The sacred gift for which I sigh 

Is not to live, to feel, alone; 20 

I only ask to calmly die. 

That the tomb might melt this heart of stone 
To love beyond the grave! 



(147) 



^tS'^iS'^^^^OiS'^^^^O 



Zeinab and Kathema 



Upon the lonely beach Kathema lay; 

Against his folded arm his heart beat fast. 
Thro' gathering tears, the Sun's departing ray 

In coldness o'er his shuddering spirit past, 
And all unfelt the breeze of evening came 5 

That fanned with quivering wing his wan cheek's feeble 
flame. 

"Oh!" cried the mourner, "could this widowed soul 
"But fly where yonder Sun now speeds to dawn." 

He paused — a thousand thoughts began to roll; 

Like waves they swept in restless tumult on, lo 

Like those fast waves that quick-succeeding beat 

Without one lasting shape the beach beneath his feet. 

And now the beamless, broad and yellow sphere 
Half-sinking lingered on the crimson sea; 

A shape of darksome distance does appear 15 

Within its semicircled radiancy. 

All sense was gone to his betrothed one — 

His eye fell on the form that dimmed the setting sun, — 

He thought on his betrothed. . . for his youth 

With her that was its charm to ripeness grew. 20 

All that was dear in love, or fair in truth. 

With her was shared as childhood's moments flew. 

And mingled with sweet memories of her 

Was life's unveiling morn with all its bliss and care — 

(148) 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

A wild and lovely Superstition's spell. 25 

Love for the friend that life and freedom gave, 

Youth's growing hopes that watch themselves so well, 
Passion, so prompt to blight, so strong to save. 

And childhood's host of memories combine 

Her life and love around his being to entwine. 30 

And to their wishes with its joy-mixed pain. 

Just as the veil of hope began to fall. 
The Christian murderers over-ran the plain. 

Ravaging, burning and polluting all. 
Zeinab was reft to grace the robbers' land; 35 

Each drop of kindred blood stained the invaders' brand. 

Yes! they had come their holy book to bring, 
Which God's own son's apostles had compiled 

That charity and peace and love might spring 

Within a world by God's blind ire defiled, 4° 

But rapine, war and treachery rushed before 

Their hosts, and murder dyed Kathema's bower in gore. 

Therefore his soul was widowed, and alone 

He stood on the world's wide and drear expanse. 

No human ear could shudder at his groan, 45 

No heart could thrill with his unspeaking glance; 

One only hope yet lingering dared to burn, 

Urging to high emprize and deeds that danger spurn. 

The glow has failed on Ocean's western line. 

Faded from every moveless cloud above. 5° 

The moon is up — she that was wont to shine 
And bless thy childish nights of guileless love. 

Unhappy one, ere Christian rapine tore 

All ties, and stain'd thy hopes in a dear mother's gore. 

(149) 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

The form that in the setting Sun was seen 55 

Now in the moonlight slowly nears the shore, 

The white sails gleaming o'er the billows green 
That sparkle into foam its prow before, 

A wanderer of the deep it seems to be. 

On high adventures bent, and feats of chivalry. 60 

Then hope and wonder filled the mourner's mind. 

He gazed till vision even began to fail, 
When to the pulses of the evening wind 

A little boat approaching gave its sail. 
Rode o'er the slow-raised surges near the strand, 65 

Ran up the beach and gave some stranger men to land. 

"If thou wilt bear me to far England's shore 
Thine is this heap — the Christian's God!" 

The chief with gloating rapture viewed the ore. 

And his pleased avarice gave the willing nod, 70 

They reach the ship, the fresh'ning breezes rise 

And smooth and fast they speed beneath the moonlight 
skies. 

What heart e'er felt more ardent longings now? 

What eye than his e'er beamed with riper hope 
As curbed impatience on his open brow 75 

There painted fancy's unsuspected scope, 
As all that's fair the foreign land appeared 
By ever-present love, wonder and hope endeared? 

Meanwhile thro' calm and storm, thro' night and day. 
Unvarying in her aim the vessel went, 80 

As if some inward spirit ruled her way 

And her tense sails were conscious of intent, 

(150) 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

Till Albion's cliffs gleamed o'er her plunging bow 

And Albion's river-floods bright sparkled round her prow. 

Then on the land in joy Kathema leaped 85 

And kissed the soil in which his hopes were sown — 

These even now in thought his heart has reaped. 
Elate of body and soul he journeyed on. 

And the strange things of a strange land past by 

Like mites and shadows prest upon his charmed eye. 90 

Yet Albion's changeful skies and chilling wind 

The change from Cashmire's vale might well denote. 

There, Heaven and Earth are ever bright and kind; 
Here, blights and storms and damp forever float, 

Whilst hearts are more ungenial than the zone — 95 

Gross, spiritless, alive to no pangs but their own. 

There, flowers and fruits are ever fair and ripe; 

Autumn, there, mingles with the bloom of spring. 
And forms unpinched by frost or hunger's gripe 

A natural veil o'er natural spirits fling; 100 

Here, woe on all but wealth has set its foot. 
Famine, disease and crime even wealth's proud gates 
pollute. 

Unquiet death and premature decay, 

Youth tottering on the crutches of old age. 

And, ere the noon of manhood's riper day, 105 

Pangs that no art of medicine can assuage, 

Madness and passion ever mingling flames. 

And souls that well become such miserable frames — 

These are the bribes which Art to man has given 

To yield his taintless nature to her sway. 110 

(•50 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

So might dark night with meteor tempt fair Heaven 

To blot the sunbeam and forswear the day 
Till gleams of baleful light alone might shew 
The pestilential mists, the darkness and the woe. 

Kathema little felt the sleet and wind, 115 

He little heeded the wide-altered scene; 
The flame that lived within his eager mind 

There kindled all the thoughts that once had been. 
He stood alone in England's varied woe, 
Safe mid the flood of crime that round his steps did flow. 120 

It was an evening when the bitterest breath 
Of dark December swept the mists along 

That the lone wanderer came to a wild heath. 
Courage and hope had staid his nature long; 

Now cold, and unappeased hunger spent 125 

His strength, sensation failed in total languishment. 

When he awaked to life cold horror crept 
Even to his heart, for a damp deathy smell 

Had slowly come around him while he slept. 

He started . . . lo! the fitful moonbeams fell 130 

Upon a dead and naked female form 

That from a gibbet high swung to the sullen storm; 

And wildly in the wind its dark hair swung, 
Low mingling with the clangor of the chain, 

Whilst ravenous birds of prey that on it clung 135 

In the dull ear of night poured their sad strain. 

And ghastlily her shapeless visage shone 

In the unsteady light, half mouldered thro' the bone. 

Then madness seized Kathema, and his mind 

A prophecy of horror filled. He scaled »4o 

(>52) 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

The gibbet which swung slowly in the wind 

High o'er the heath. — Scarcely his strength avail'd 
To grasp the chain, when by the moonlight's gleam 
His palsied gaze was fixed on Zeinab's altered frame. 

Yes! in those orbs once bright with life and love 145 

Now full-fed worms bask in unnatural light; 

That neck on which his eyes were wont to rove 
In rapture, changed by putrefaction's blight, 

Now rusts the ponderous links that creak beneath 

Its weight and turns to life the frightful sport of death. 150 

Then in the moonlight played Kathema's smile 
Calmly. — In peace his spirit seemed to be. 

He paused, even like a man at ease awhile, 
Then spoke — "My love! I will be like to thee, 

A mouldering carcase or a spirit blest, 155 

With thee corruption's prey, or Heaven's happy guest." 

He twined the chain around his neck, then leaped 
Forward, in haste to meet the life to come. 

An iron-souled son of Europe might have wept 

To witness such a noble being's doom 160 

As on the death-scene Heaven indignant frowned 

And Night in horror drew her veil the dead around. 

For they had torn his Zeinab from her home. 
Her innocent habits were all rudely shriven; 

And, dragged to live in love's untimely tomb, 165 

To prostitution, crime and woe was driven. 

The human race seemed leagued against her weal. 

And indignation cased her naked heart in steel. 

Therefore against them she waged ruthless war 

With their own arms of bold and bloody crime, — 17° 

(^53) 



ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

Even like a mild and sweetly-beaming star 

Whose rays were wont to grace the matin-prime 
Changed to a comet, horrible and bright. 
Which wild careers awhile then sinks in dark-red night. 

Thus, like its God, unjust and pityless, i75 

Crimes first are made and then avenged by man. 

For where's the tender heart, whose hope can bless 
Or man's, or God's, unprofitable plan — 

A universe of horror and decay. 

Gibbets, disease, and wars, and hearts as hard as they. 180 



(154) 



^SS'^t^^iS'^^^W'CiS-O&O 



The Retrospect. 

Cwm Elan 
l8i2 



To trace Duration's lone career, 

To check the chariot of the year, 

Whose burning wheels forever sweep 

The boundaries of oblivion's deep. . . . 

To snatch from Time, the monster's, jaw 5 

The children which she just had borne 

And, ere entombed within her maw. 

To drag them to the light of morn 

And mark each feature with an eye 

Of cold and fearless scrutiny. ... lo 

It asks a soul not formed to feel. 

An eye of glass, a hand of steel. 

Thoughts that have passed, and thoughts that are. 

With truth and feeling to compare; 

A scene which wildered fancy viewed 15 

In the soul's coldest solitude. 

With that same scene when peaceful love 

Flings rapture's colour o'er the grove. 

When mountain, meadow, wood and stream 

With unalloying glory gleam so 

And to the spirit's ear and eye 

Are unison and harmony. 

The moonlight was my dearer day: — 

Then would I wander far away 

And lingering on the wild brook's shore 25 

(155) 



THE RETROSPECT 

To hear its unremitting roar. 

Would lose in the ideal flow 

All sense of overwhelming woe; 

Or at the noiseless noon of night 

Would climb some heathy mountain's height 30 

And listen to the mystic sound 

That stole in fitful gasps around. 

I joyed to see the streaks of day 

Above the purple peaks decay 

And watch the latest line of light 35 

Just mingling \\'ith the shades of night; 

For day with me, was time of woe 

When even tears refused to flow; 

Then would I stretch my languid frame 

Beneath the wild-woods' gloomiest shade 40 

And try to quench the ceaseless flame 

That on my withered vitals preyed; 

Would close mine eyes and dream I were 

On some remote and friendless plain. 

And long to leave existence there 45 

If with it I might leave the pain 

That with a finger cold and lean 

Wrote madness on my withering mien. 

It was not unrequited love 

That bade my wildered spirit rove; 5® 

'Twas not the pride, disdaining life. 

That with this mortal world at strife 

Would yield to the soul's inward sense, 

Then gToan in human impotence. 

And weep, because it is not given 55 

To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven. 

'Twas not, that in the narrow sphere 

Where Nature fixed my wayward fate 

(•56) 



THE RETROSPECT 

There was no friend or kindred dear 

Formed to become that spirit's mate, 60 

Which, searching on tired pinion, found 

Barren and cold repulse around. . . . 

Ah no! yet each one sorrow gave 

New graces to the narrow grave: 

For broken vows had early quelled 65 

The stainless spirit's vestal flame. 

Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled 

Then the envenomed arrow came 

And apathy's unaltering eye 

Beamed coldness on the misery; 70 

And early I had learned to scorn • 

The chains of clay that bound a soul 

Panting to seize the wings of morn, 

And where its vital fires were born 

To soar, and spurn the cold control 75 

Which the vile slaves of earthly night 

Would twine around its struggling flight. 

O, many were the friends whom fame 

Had linked with the unmeaning name 

Whose magic marked among mankind 80 

The casket of my unknown mind. 

Which, hidden from the vulgar glare. 

Imbibed no fleeting radiance there. 

My darksome spirit sought. It found 

A friendless solitude around, — 85 

For who, that might undaunted stand 

The saviour of a sinking land. 

Would crawl, its ruthless tyrant's slave 

And fatten upon freedom's grave, 

Tho' doomed with her to perish where 90 

The captive clasps abhorred despair, 

(157) 



THE RETROSPECT 

They could not share the bosom's feeling. 

Which, passion's every throb revealing, 

Dared force on the world's notice cold 

Thoughts of unprofitable mould, 95 

Who bask in Custom's fickle ray, — 

Fit sunshine of such wintry day! 

They could not in a twilight walk 

Weave an impassioned web of talk 

Till mysteries the spirit press loo 

In wild yet tender awfulness, 

Then feel within our narrow sphere 

How little yet how great we are! 

But they might shine in courtly glare. 

Attract the rabble's cheapest stare, 105 

And might command where'er they move 

A thing that bears the name of love; 

They might be learned, witty, gay. 

Foremost in fashion's gilt array. 

On Fame's emblazoned pages shine, no 

Be princes' friends, but never mine! 

Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime, 

Mocking the blunted scythe of Time, 

Whence I would watch its lustre pale 

Steal from the moon o'er yonder vale! 115 

Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast 
Bared to the stream's unceasing flow. 
Ever its giant shade doth cast 
On the tumultuous surge below! 

The wounded echo's melody, 120 

Woods, to whose depth retires to die 

(158) 



THE RETROSPECT 

And whither this lone spirit bent 
The footstep of a wild intent — 

Meadows! Whose green and spangled breast 

These fevered limbs have often pressed 125 

Until the watchful fiend, despair. 

Slept in the soothing coolness there! 

Have not your varied beauties seen 

The sunken eye, the withering mien, 

Sad traces of the unuttered pain 130 

That froze my heart and burned my brain? 

How changed since nature's summer form 

Had last the power my grief to charm. 

Since last ye soothed my spirit's sadness — 

Strange chaos of a mingled madness! 135 

Changed! — not the loathsome worm that fed 

In the dark mansions of the dead, 

Now soaring thro' the fields of air 

And gathering purest nectar there, 

A butterfly whose million hues 140 

The dazzled eye of wonder views. 

Long lingering on a work so strange. 

Has undergone so bright a change! 

How do I feel my happiness? 

I cannot tell, but they may guess 145 

Whose every gloomy feeling gone. 

Friendship and passion feel alone; 

Who see mortality's dull clouds 

Before affection's murmur fly. 

Whilst the mild glances of her eye 150 

Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds 

The spirit's radiant sanctuary. 

(159) 



THE RETROSPECT 

O thou! whose virtues latest known. 

First in this heart yet claim'st a throne; 

Whose downy sceptre still shall share 155 

The gentle sway with virtue there; 

Thou fair in form and pure in mind, 

Whose ardent friendship rivets fast 

The flowery band our fates that bind, 

Which, incorruptible, shall last 160 

When duty's hard and cold control 

Had thawed around the burning soul; 

The gloomiest retrospects that bind 

With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind. 

The prospects of most doubtful hue 165 

That rise on Fancy's shuddering view. 

Are gilt by the reviving ray 

Which thou hast flung upon my day. 



(160) 



0$02&0250iJOi?Oi&Oiai^ 



The wandering Jew's soliloquy 



Is it the Eternal Triune, is it He 

Who dares arrest the wheels of destiny 

And plunge me in this lowest Hell of Hells? 

Will not the lightning's blast destroy my frame? 

Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells? 5 

No — let me hie where dark destruction dwells, 

To rouse her from her deeply-caverned lair 

And, taunting her curst sluggishness to ire. 

Light long Oblivion's death-torch at its flame 

And calmly mount Annihilation's pyre. 10 



Tyrant of Earth! pale Misery's jackall thou! 

Are there no stores of vengeful violent fate 

Within the magazines of thy fierce hate? 

No poison in thy clouds to bathe a brow 

That lowers on thee with desperate contempt? 15 

Where is the noonday pestilence that slew 

The myriad sons of Israel's favoured nation? 

Where the destroying minister that flew 

Pouring the fiery tide of desolation 

Upon the leagued Assyrian's attempt? 20 

Where the dark Earthquake demon who ingorged 

At thy dread word Korah's unconscious crew? 

Or the Angel's two-edged sword of fire that urged 

Our primal parents from their bower of bliss 

(Reared by thine hand) for errors not their own, 25 

By thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown? 

(161) 



THE WANDERING JEW S SOLILOQUY 

Yes! I would court a ruin such as this. 
Almighty Tyrant! and give thanks to thee. — 
Drink deeply — drain the cup of hate — remit; then I may 
die. 



(162) 



To lanthe. 

Sept: i8i^ 



I love thee, Baby! for thine own sweet sake; 

Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek, 

Thy tender frame so eloquently weak. 

Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake; 

But more, when o'er thy fitful slumber bending 

Thy mother folds thee to her wakeful heart, 

Whilst love and pity in her glances blending. 

All that thy passive eyes can feel, impart; 

More, when some feeble lineaments of her 

Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom, 

As with deep love I read thy face, recur. 

More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom, 

Dearest, when most thy tender traits express 

The image of thy Mother's loveliness. — 



(163) 



^iS>^i3>^^OiS-^iS'OiS>Ci3>0 



Evening — to Harriet. 

Sep. i8i^ 

O thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue line 
Of western distance that sublime descendest, 
And gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline. 
Thy million hues to every vapour lendest, 
And over cobweb lawn and grove and stream 
Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, 
Till calm Earth with the parting splendor bright 
Shews like the vision of a beauteous dream; 
What gazer now with astronomic eye 
Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere? 
Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he fly 
The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear. 
And, turning senseless from thy warm caress. 
Pick flaws in our close-woven happiness. 

July3i«t 1813. 



(164) 



^iS'^^0!S-0^^iS>0tS>^i3>^ 



To Harriett 



Thy look of love has power to calm 

The stormiest passion of my Soul; 
Thy gentle words are drops of balm 

In life's too bitter bowl. 
No grief is mine but that alone 5 

These choicest blessings I have known. 

Harriett! if all who long to live 

In the warm sunshine of thine eye. 
That price beyond all pain must give, — 

Beneath thy scorn to die; lo 

Then hear thy chosen own, too late, 
His heart most worthy of thy hate. 

Be thou, then, one among mankind 
Whose heart is harder not for state — 

Thou only, virtuous, gentle, kind, 15 

Amid a world of hate — 

And by a slight endurance seal 

A fellow being's lasting weal. 

For pale with anguish is his cheek, 

His breath comes fast, his eyes are dim; 20 

Thy name is struggling ere he speak; 

Weak is each trembling limb. 
In mercy let him not endure 
The misery of a fatal cure. 

O, trust for once no erring guide! 25 

Bid the remorseless feeling flee; 

(165) 



TO HARRIETT 

'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride, 

'Tis any thing but thee. 
O, deign a nobler pride to prove, 
And pity if thou canst not love! 30 

Cook's Hotel 
May 1814 



(.66) 



>^IS'^IS>^IS'^IS>^^^13'013>0 



Full many a mind 

Full many a mind with radiant genius fraught 
Is taught the dark scowl of misery to bear; 
How many a great soul has often sought 
To stem the sad torrent of wild despair! 

'T'would not be Earth's laws were given 
To stand between Man, God and Heaven, 
To teach him where to seek and truly find 
That lasting comfort, peace of mind. 

Stanmore. 1815 



(.67) 



,^tS'^iS>^lS>^iS'^iS>^lS'^iS>^ 



To Harriet 

May i8i^ 

Oh Harriet, love like mine that glows, 
What rolling years can e'er destroy? 
Without thee, can I tell my woes? 
And with thee, can I speak my grief? 

Ah no, past all the futile power 5 

Of words to tell is love like mine. 

My love is not the fading flower 

That fleets ere it attains its prime; 

A moment of delight with thee 

Would pay me for an age of pain. lo 

I'll tell not of Rapture and Joy 
Which swells thro' the Libertine's frame; 
That breast must feel bliss with alloy 
That is scorched by so selfish a flame. 

It were pleasure to die for my love, 15 

It were rapture to sink in the grave 
My eternal affection to prove, 
My ever dear Harriet to save. 

Without thee all pleasure were gloom. 

And with thee all sorrow were joy. 20 

Ere I knew thee, my Harriet, each year 

Passed in mournful rotation away; 

No friend to my bosom was dear, 

Slow rolled the unvarying day. 

(168) 



TO HARRIET 

Shall I wake then those horrors anew 25 

That swelled in my desperate brain 
When to death's darkened portals I flew 
And sought misery's relief to my pain? 

That hour which tears thee from me 

Leaves nothing but death and despair, 3° 

And that, Harriet, never could be 

Were thy mind less enchantingly fair. 

'Tis not for the charms of thy form, 

Which decay with the swift rolling year, 

Ah no. Heaven expands to my sight 35 

For Elysium with Harriet must be. 

Adieu, my love; good night. 

Cum Elam 



('69) 



'CiS>^^^iS'^lS'^iS'C!S-^lS>^ 



Late was the night 



Late was the night, the moon shone bright; 
It teinted the walls with a silver light 
And threw its wide, uncertain beam 
Upon its rolling mountain stream. 

That stream so swift that rushes along 5 

Has oft been dyed by the murderer's song; 
It oft has heard the exulting wave 
Of one who oft the murderer braved. 

The Alpine summits, which, raised on high. 
Peacefully frown on the Valley beneath lo 

And lift their Huge forms to the Sky, 
Oft have heard the voice of death. 

Now not a murmur floats on the air 

Save the distant rounds of the torrent's tide. 

Not a cloud obscures the moors so fair, 15 

Not a shade is seen on the rocks to glide. 

See that fair form that he can save. 

Her garments are tattered, her bosom so bare? 

She shrinks from the yawning watery grave. 

And, shivering, around her enwraps her dark hair. 20 

Poor Emma has toiled o'er many a mile — 
The victim of misery's own sad child. 
Pale is her cheek, all trembling awhile. 
She totters and falls on the cold-striken wild. 

1815 

(170) 



^IS'^!S>^13>^^^^^^CIS'<^ 



To St Irvyne 

Feb'' 28''' 1803 



O'er thy turrets, St Irvyne, the winter winds roar. 
The long grass of thy Towers streams to the blast. 

Must I never, St Irvyne, then visit thee more? 
Are those visions of transient happiness past — 

When with Harriet I sat on the mouldering height, 5 

When with Harriet I gazed on the star-spangled sky. 

And the August Moon shone thro' the dimness of night? 
How swiftly the moment of pleasure fled by! 

How swift is a fleeting smile chased by a sigh! 

This breast, this poor sorrow-torn breast must confess: 10 
Oh Harriet, loved Harriet, tho' thou art not nigh, 

Think not thy lover thinks of thee less. 

How oft have we roamed thro' the stillness of Eve 
Through St Irvyne's old rooms that so fast fade away. 

That these pleasure-winged moments were transient 

I grieve; 15 

My Soul like those turrets falls fast to decay. 

My Harriet is fled like a fast-fading dream. 
Which fades ere the vision is fixed on the mind. 

But has left a firm love and a lasting esteem. 

That my soul to her soul must eternally bind. 20 

(■70 



TO ST IRVYNE 

When my mouldering bones lie in the cold, chilling grave, 
When my last groans are borne o'er Strood's wide Lea, 

And over my Tomb the chill night-tempests rave, 

Then, loved Harriet, bestow one poor thought on me. 

To H Grove 



(172) 



iS'O^^iS'^iS'^iS'OtS'OiS'OiS' 



COMMENTARIES 

PUBLICATION HISTORY 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION 

TEXTUAL NOTES 

REFERENCE SOURCES 



iS^^^i^OiS'^^O^^^^^ 



Commentaries 



Page 57. To Harriet (''Whose is the love") 

SHELLEY, as we have noted, also used this poem — with 
changes — as the dedication to Queen Mab.^ In regard 
to the curious unrhymed stanzaic form, Edward Dowden, 
in his manuscript copybook,^ has the following note: "The 
form of the stanza adopted from Southey e.g. 'Ode written 
on 1st of Jan 1794' (in Poems 1797). Wm Taylor & 
Amelia Opie had used this stanza in Annual Anthology 
1799-" 

^See above, p. 29. 

2 Through Richard Garnett, Dowden obtained access to the Shelley 
family holdings in the possession of Sir Percy Florence Shelley. But he 
decided also to contact the other branch of Shelley's descendants, and 
sometime in 1884 got in touch with the Esdaile family. The rest of the 
story can be followed in the Dowden-Garnett correspondence in Letters 
about Shelley. 

On July 9, 1884, Richard Garnett (at the British Museum) wrote to 
Dowden (at Trinity College, Dublin) that he found Dowden 's comments 
on "the early poetry indeed interesting." That the reference is to the 
poetry in the Esdaile Notebook is indicated by a letter from Dowden to 
Garnett on November 21: "Mr. Esdaile's book is still in my hands." As 
Dowden had intended to visit Garnett on a trip to London on April 26, 
presumably he had then shown him the notebook. On November 21 
also Dowden told Garnett that he intended to "make a copy" of the note- 
book. (Letters about Shelley, pp. 104, 106-7, ^02.) On the title page of the 
first volume of the copybook (see above, p. 32), under the title "Shelley/ 
Esdaile MS./vol i.," Dowden has written the following note: "The MS 
was copied for the purposes of my Life of Shelley, in which, by the kind 
permission of M' Esdaile some poems & passages of poems were printed. 

('75) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Southey's poem "Written on the First of January" opens 
as follows: 

Come, melancholy Moralizer, come! 
Gather with me the dark and wintry wreath; 

With me engarland now 

The Sepulchre of Time. 

The garland image may indicate that Shelley (see line 12) 
not only had the stanzaic form in mind but also had some 
remembrance of content. 

Below his comment on the form of the stanza Dowden 
has another (written in pencil): "Note that these Southean 
rimeless pieces come in a group & are placed first." There 
are four such "rimeless pieces" following this dedicatory 
poem. 



Page ^8. A sabbath Walk 

Dowden in his manuscript copybook made the following 
comments: "Unrimed stanza. Southey's influence Compare 
'Written on Sunday Morning' in Southey's vol of 1797. 
? Written at Keswick 1811-12." Then he added in pen- 
cil: "or at Tremadoc 1812-13?" 

Dowden does not give his reasoning for these possible 
datings but it is clear enough. The poem was written on 
a "winter's day" (line 28) among mountains (line 5). In 
the period during which these poems were being written, 
Shelley was only twice in mountainous country in winter: 

I was not forbidden to make a copy. But of course these two MS volumes 
must be kept absolutely private h no copies must be taken. Edward 
Dowden." 

Dowden informed Garnett in his letter of November 21 that he would 
send him the copybooks. These were returned by Garnett the following 
June. {Ibid., pp. 129, 130.) Volume I has a few notations by Garnett in 
pencil. 

(176) 



COMMENTARIES 

at Keswick, in the English Lake District, between Novem- 
ber 1811 and February 1812 (where he met Southey); 
at Tremadoc, in Wales, between November 1812 and 
March 1813. 

Of the two, the evidence favors Keswick and the winter 
of 1811-1812 rather than Tremadoc and the winter of 
1812-1813. We learn, for instance, from a letter to Eliza- 
beth Hitchener that Shelley was in the habit of taking 
walks of this kind at Keswick: "I have taken a long soli- 
tary ramble to-day. These gigantic mountains piled on 
each other, these water-falls, these million-shaped clouds 
tinted by the varying colors of innumerable rainbows hang- 
ing between yourself and a lake as smooth and dark as a 
plain of polished jet — oh, these are sights attunable to 
the contemplation."^ 

In another Keswick letter to her we find sentiments very 
similar to those in the poem: "You talk of religion, — 
the influence human depravity gained over your mind 
towards acceding to it. — But, for this purpose, the Re- 
ligion of the Deist, or the worshipper of virtue would suf- 
fice, without involving the persecution, battles, bloodshed, 
which countenancing Christianity countenances. — I think, 
my friend^ we are the devoutest professors of true religion 
I know, — if the perverted and prostituted name of 'Reli- 
gion' is applicable to the idea of Devotion to Virtue."^ 

The letter goes on to discuss the crisis in Shelley's re- 
lationship with Hogg because of Hogg's attempt to seduce 
Harriet. The confrontation had taken place but shortly 
before: "I sought him, and we walked to the fields beyond 
York. I desired to know fully the account of this affair. 



3 November 23, i8n, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 197-8. 

4 November 17-18, 1811, ibid., pp. 195-6. The letter is undated but the 
London postmark is November 20. It took two or three days for mail 
to go from Keswick to London. 



(177) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I heard it from him, and I believe he was sincere. All I 
can recollect of that terrible day was that I said I par- 
doned him, freely, fully pardoned him, that I would still 
be a friend to him."^ After Shelley arrived at Keswick a 
series of agonized letters passed between him and Hogg 
(with Hogg threatening suicide): "I have just finished 
reading your long letter to Harriett it is late, as the 
post is so. Therefore I may not say all I wish, indeed that 
is not probable, words cannot express half my reasonings 
the thousandth of my feeling. . . . Can I not feel? are not 
those throbbing temples that bursting heart chained to 
mine . . do they not sympathize."^ 

We know of no other crisis in Shelley's life in these 
years to which the following lines (lines 6-8) could apply: 

even when the frost has torn 
All save the ivy clinging to the rocks 
Like friendship to a friend's adversity! 

And here it might be well to interpolate a point which 
will come up many times, namely, that references of this 
kind in Shelley's poetry, which may at first seem to be gen- 
eral in nature, almost always turn out to be specific and 
autobiographical. This penchant, indeed at times almost 
obsession, for the autobiographical was to continue 
throughout Shelley's poetry — in Rosalind and Helen, 
Julian and Maddalo, Epipsychidion. 

Shelley's indebtedness to Southey's "Written on Sun- 
day Morning," noted by Dowden, is clear enough. Southey's 
poem opens: 

Go thou and seek the House of Prayer 1 
I to the woodlands wend, and there 
In lovely Nature see the God of Love. 

^November 14, 1811, ibid., p. 187. 

^November 13, 1811. From the original manuscript in The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library. 

(>78) 



COMMENTARIES 

But Southey's mild deism is far removed from Shelley's 
militant anti-clericalism: 

'Tis not the fabled cause that framed 
The everlasting orbs of Heaven. 

Shelley, at first impressed by Southey, grew disillusioned: 

Southey, the poet, whose principles were pure and ele- 
vated once, is now the paid champion of every abuse and 
absurdity. I have had much conversation with him. He 
says, "You will think as I do when you are as old." I do 
not feel the least disposition to be Mr. S's proselyte.'^ 



Page 40. The Crisis 

The title apparently does not refer to any particular 
event but to the general historical period, which Shelley 
believed was mounting to a crisis: 

the consummating hour 
Dreadfully, sweetly, swiftly is arriving. 

The theme anticipates Queen Mab: 

Man, like these passive things. 
Thy will unconsciously fulfilleth: 
Like theirs, his age of endless peace, 
Which time is fast maturing. 
Will swiftly, surely come.^ 

■'^To William Godwin, January 16, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, 
VIII, 244. But Shelley continued to use the unrhymed stanza form of 
Southey. He used it in Queen Mab; and he was conscious of its origin: 
"The didactic is in blank heroic verse, and the descriptive in blank lyrical 
measure. If an authority is of any weight in support of this singularity, 
Milton's 'Samson Agonistes,' the Greek Choruses, and (you will laugh) 
Southey's 'Thalaba' may be adduced." (To Hogg, February 7, 1813, 
Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 44.) 

8 Queen Mab, III, 233-7. 

(179) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

So far as the general references to the despotism and 
corruption of the English and European monarchies are 
concerned, the poem could have been written at any time 
between 1809 and the period of the compilation of the 
Notebook. Later composition, however, is indicated by 
the poem's stark directness, which contrasts with the ear- 
lier Original Poetry manner (with its echoes from Gray, 
Scott, Campbell, and Monk Lewis). The only specific ref- 
erence, that to mother and child murder, may be paral- 
leled in a letter to Elizabeth Hitchener from Keswick on 
January 7, 1812, which like the poem comments on politi- 
cal and social matters: 

Popular insurrections and revolutions I look upon with 
discountenance. // such things must be, I will take the 
side of the People . . . Keswick seems more like a suburb 
of London than a village of Cumberland. Children are 
frequently found in the River, which the unfortunate 
women employed at the manufactory destroy.^ 

The Southeyan unrhymed stanzas also point to compostion 
at Keswick. 



Page 41. Passion 

DowDEN in his manuscript copybook has the following 
note: "? To the deadly nightshade only that Shelley c*^ 
hardly have failed to insert this name. Again unrimed 
stanza." Dowden's view receives support from the follow- 
ing lines in Queen Mab: 

Like passion's fruit, the nightshade's tempting bane 
Poisons no more the pleasure it bestows.^ 

9 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 234, 235. 

"^ Queen Mab, VIII, 129-30. We might also note Prometheus Unbound, 
III, iv, 79-83. 



(,80) 



COMMENTARIES 

This might, in fact, be taken as settling the matter if 
it were not for a passage in a letter from Keswick to Hogg 
in which Shelley argues against Hogg's joining them at 
Keswick: 

"Absence extinguishes small passions and kindles great 
ones" but presence without fullest satiation will kindle 
the passions to an inextinguishable flame, how have I 
heard you talk of the infinite progression of Love. — It 
is strange to me that you who know the human mind so 
well should think so lightly of sensation If you have 
loved 1 can believe that you have not felt it lightly — . 
Harriet has written to you — What she has said I know 
not. / have not been able to write for this day or two to 
you owing to having been ill from the poison of laurel- 
leaves.2 

The connection of passion both in the poem and in the 
letter with a poisonous plant is unlikely to be coincidental. 
It would seem, however, that the plant described in the 
poem was neither the deadly nightshade nor the laurel. 
The description seems best to fit the plant known as 
Arum maculatum, popularly known as adder's root, a plant 
with a mottled stem and poisonous berries.^ Perhaps Shelley 
did not insert the name in the title because he was not 
really sure what the plant was. 

As this letter to Hogg can be dated about November 
17-18, 1811, and the letter to Elizabeth Hitchener paral- 
leling "A sabbath Walk" was written on November 17, it 
may be that both poems were written at about the same 
time. 



2 November 17-18, 1811. From the original manuscript in The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library. 

8 Information supplied by Miss Elizabeth C. Hall, Research Librarian, 
New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx, New York. 



(181) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Page ^5 . To Harriet (''Never, O never'') 

As THIS POEM is also in unrhymed Southeyan stanzas and 
is placed at the end of what appears to be a Keswick se- 
quence, presumably it, too, was written at Keswick. If so, 
the poem may have its origin not in Harriet's jealousy 
of another woman — as one might at first think — but 
in jealousy of Hogg. That this could well have been so is 
clear from a reading of Shelley's letters to Hogg from 
Keswick. Hogg, in a frenzy of guilt, was threatening sui- 
cide and Shelley in the midst of his own agitation was 
trying at once to calm him, point out his errors, and affirm 
both past friendship and present regard. It is an easy cor- 
respondence to misread and one should not take a sentence 
or two out of context, but perhaps the following might 
give some indication of the moods that could have in- 
spired the poem. "Oh how I haved loved you. I was even 
ashamed to tell you how! & now to leave you j or ever. 
. . . — no not forever . . Night comes . . . Death comes 
. . Cold calm death almost I would it were tomorrow 

there is another life are you not to be the first there. 

. . . Assuredly . . ."^ Harriet, reading these lines or hear- 
ing Shelley express similar sentiments, might well have 
felt that he had gone a little far in his efforts to soothe 
Hogg's ruffled feathers, and her protest could have pro- 
duced just such a poem. Both poem and letter, we might 
note, contain death-wish fantasies. 

Shelley's sister, Hellen, remembered Harriet as having 
"hair quite like a poet's dream. "^ Peacock described it as 



* November 7-9, 1811. From the original manuscript in The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library. 
^ Hogg, Shelley, I, 32. 

(.82) 



COMMENTARIES 



"light brown. "^ Shelley here calls it auburn. Perhaps Shel- 
ley and Peacock saw it in a different light. 



Page 44. Falshood and Vice 

Shelley included this poem in the Notes to Queen Mah 
with the following introductory comment: "I will here 
subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my abhor- 
rence of despotism and falshood, that I fear lest it never 
again may be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is 
perhaps the only one that ever will occur of rescuing it 
from oblivion." The two versions, however, are not identi- 
cal. There are a number of word changes, and two can- 
celed lines in the Esdaile Notebook (lines 81-82) do not 
appear in the Queen Mah version. The Notebook ver- 
sion was not, of course, itself a composition draft but was 
copied from another manuscript. In fact, Shelley himself 
perhaps miscopied "with" for "wields" in line 7. In any 
case, there must have been at least three manuscripts: a 
composition draft, the Esdaile Notebook, and one used for 
Queen Mab. 

In general style and content the poem is similar to Shel- 
ley's 1810-1811 radical verse, resembling, for instance, 
"War" in Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, 
published in November 1810. But there is at least one 
piece of evidence which seems to place it after Shelley's 
first meeting with Southey at Keswick in December 1811. 

C. D. Locock noted in his edition of Shelley's poems that 
"Coleridge's 'War Eclogue,' Fire, Famine and Slaughter, 
is, no doubt, the inspiration of this Dialogue.'"^ When we 

^ Peacock, Memoirs, p. 95. 

■^ C. D. Locock, The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London, igu), II, 
553- 

(>83) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

turn to Coleridge's poem the influence is indeed clear. 
Furthermore, Fire, Famine and Slaughter obviously made 
a deep impression on Shelley. Its influence on the first 
part of the Furies episode in Prometheus Unbound (Act 
I, lines 495-538) is unmistakable. The Carl H. Pforz- 
heimer Library contains a copy of the poem in Mary Shel- 
ley's hand, presumably copied out for Shelley. 

One problem, however, Locock fails to note. Fire, 
Famine and Slaughter, one of Coleridge's early, revolu- 
tionary poems, was first published (anonymously) in the 
Morning Post in 1798; then in 1800 in the Annual Anthol- 
ogy (again anonymously). Coleridge did not publish it 
again until 1817, in his volume Sibylline Leaves, and then 
with an apologetic preface. He would not, in all prob- 
ability, have included it in this book if Leigh Hunt had 
not published it the previous year in The Examiner ("to 
his annoyance," commented Crabb Robinson).^ If, then, 
the poem was not published between 1800 and 1816, how 
did Shelley obtain access to it in the meantime? He would 
not normally have encountered either the Morning Post 
of 1798 or the Annual Anthology of 1800; and even if he 
had, in neither instance was the poem identified as Cole- 
ridge's. When we recall, however, that Southey was the 
editor of the Annual Anthology, an explanation presents 
itself; namely, that Southey showed it to Shelley and told 
him that the poem was by Coleridge. Southey would al- 
most certainly have had the Annual Anthology volumes 
in his extensive library at Keswick ( a library that Shelley 
visited). 

Shelley informed Elizabeth Hitchener on December 
15, 1811, that he expected to meet Southey "soon"; on 
December 26 he wrote: "I have also been much engaged 

^ Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and Their Writers, ed. Edith J. 
Morley (London, 1938), I, 198. 

(.84) 



COMMENTARIES 

in talking with Southey."^ In a letter of about January 17 
(undated but bearing a London postmark of January 20), 
also to Elizabeth Hitchener, he included his poem The 
Devil's Walk. As this poem imitated similar poems by 
Coleridge and Southey, it is apparent that Southey had 
been showing him his own and perhaps also Coleridge's 
writings. 

"Falshood and Vice," then, was almost certainly writ- 
ten later that the middle of December 1811, It is possible 
that it was written in Dublin or at Keswick just before he 
left for Dublin. The comments on the "unhappy land" 
(line 12) sound rather like Ireland and a line in The 
Devil's Walk (the first draft of which was written at Kes- 
wick), "Fat — as the death-birds on Erin's shore," may 
echo the same scene. 

In spite of its title the poem is social rather than moral 
in purport. By "Falshood" Shelley means essentially re- 
ligion (and his tenor here is similar to that of Paine or 
Holbach) and by "Vice," war and despotism. War-Des- 
potism claims that it has done more harm than religion; 
Religion answers that if its lies had not first weakened the 
mind of Man he would not have accepted such evils. Al- 
though some references are to history in general, the main 
emphasis is on Shelley's own age, especially the Napole- 
onic Wars: 

I have extinguished the noonday sun 
In the carnage smoke of battles won. 

The "bloated wretch" (line 70) is most likely the Prince 
Regent, whose fatness is made much of in The Devil's 
Walk. 

9 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 223. 



(■85) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Page ^8. To the Emperors of Russia and Austria 

The poem gives the impression of having been written 
shortly after the battle (December 2, 1805), but the radi- 
cal and pacifist sentiments point to at least late 1809 and 
such skilled turns of phrase as 

on yonder plain 
The game, if lost, begins again 

to 1 8 1 o or, more probably, 1811. 

In spite of the partiality to Napoleon implied in the title, 
Shelley did not share the admiration for him that we find 
in such other English radicals of the time as Hazlitt or 
Byron, for he regarded war itself with such abhorrence that 
he hated all its practitioners. In December 1812, he wrote 
of him to Hogg as "a hateful and despicable being."^ 
In "Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of 
Napoleon" (1821), he writes: 

Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, 
In terror, and blood, and gold, 

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.2 

But much as he abhorred Napoleon, Shelley still put 
him above such petty tyrants as the Austrian Emperor 
and the Russian Czar, whom he considered "slaves" (line 
44) of the great "tyrant." 

The lines (29-30) 

Till from the ruin of the storm 
Ariseth Freedom's awful form 



^December 27, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 37. 

2 See also "Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte"; A 
Philosophical View of Reform (1820), Shelley, Complete Works, VII, 14; 
The Triumph of Life (1822), lines 215-27. 

(186) 



COMMENTARIES 

anticipate the conclusion of "Sonnet: England in 1819"; 

from which a glorious Phantom may 
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 

The "glorious Phantom" is freedom or liberty. 



Page ^o. To November 

The "My Harriet" of line 12 indicates that the poem was 
written to Harriet (Westbrook Shelley and not to Shel- 
ley's boyhood sweetheart, Harriet Grove.^ Shelley does 
not refer to Harriet Grove as "my Harriet," and could 
not appropriately have done so. But he did call his wife 
"my Harriet"; for instance, when writing to Hogg on his 
Irish travels: "My Harriet insisted on accompanying me."* 
As Shelley eloped with Harriet Westbrook in the summer 
of 1811 and the Notebook poems had been compiled and 
rejected for publication by the spring of 1813, "Novem- 
ber" is obviously either November 1811 or November 
1812. Of the two, 1811 seems the more likely. 

On November 6, 1811, Shelley and Harriet arrived in 
Keswick; the first part of November 1812 they spent 
in London, the second at Tremadoc in Wales. At Trema- 
doc, Shelley worked on Queen Mab, which is much more 
mature in style than "To November" and appears to have 
absorbed all his energies. 

The unhappy May of stanza four was probably the May 
of 1811, when Shelley was alone at Field Place after having 
been with Harriet Westbrook in London. 



3 For an account of Harriet Grove and the Grove family, see Frederick 
L. Jones, "Introduction to the Diary of Harriet Grove," Shelley and his 
Circle, II, 475-506. 

^ March 31, 1813, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 61. 

(187) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Page 52. Written on a beautiful day in Spring 

The Wordsworthian tone points to a "Spring" following 
Shelley's stay at Keswick in the winter of 1811-1812, when 
he apparently was introduced to Wordsworth's poems by 
Southey. If so, the "Spring" was that of 1812, for the Note- 
book poems had been compiled for publication by the 
spring of 1813. In the spring of 1812 Shelley was in Wales, 
having just returned from his first visit to Ireland. Late 
in June he left Wales for Devon. We find similar Words- 
worthian influence in a poem apparently written shortly 
after he arrived in Devon, "To Harriet ('It is not blas- 
phemy')." 

Shelley's use of the words "God" and "Heaven" (see 
line 10) in his poetry has caused confusion, leading some 
critics to ascribe orthodox Christian beliefs to him,^ The 
problem occurs several times in the Esdaile Notebook 
poems. 

Shelley's views on God and immortality during these 
early years are best expressed in his letters to Elizabeth 
Hitchener: 



What then is a "God"? It is a name which expresses the 
unknown cause, the supposititious origin of all existence. 
When we speak of the soul of man, we mean that vm- 
known cause which produces the observable effect evinced 
by his intelligence and bodily animation, which are in 
their nature conjoined, and, as we suppose, as we observe, 
inseparable. The word God then, in the sense which you 
take it analogises with the universe, as the soul of man to 



^ For an interesting discussion of the point, see C. E. Piilos, The Deep 
Truth (University of Nebraska Press, 1954), pp. 101-4. 



(.88) 



COMMENTARIES 

his body, as the vegetative power to vegetables, the stony 
power to stones.6 

... is then soul annihilable? Yet one of the properties 
of animal soul is consciousness of identity. If this is de- 
stroyed, in consequence the soul whose essence this is 
must perish; but as I conceive and as is certainly capable 
of demonstration that nothing can be annihilated, but 
that everything appertaining to nature, consisting of con- 
stituent parts infinitely divisible, is in a continual change, 
then do I suppose, and I think I have a right to draw 
this inference, that neither will soul perish; that in a 
future existence it will lose all consciousness of having 
formerly lived elsewhere, will begin life anew, possibly 
under a shape of which we have now no idea.^ 

"God," then, Shelley used as a synonym for the essence 
of existence. He does not believe in a personal immortality, 
but (as in Adonais) the return of the soul to "the burn- 
ing fountain whence it came." Presumably he had the 
same idea in mind with regard to "Heaven" in this poem. 
The situation, however, is complicated by the fact that 
Shelley, in his poetry, felt free to express ideas which 
he did not believe to be capable of rational proof, if 
they were "exalting." As he later put it in a note to Hellas: 

The received hypothesis of a Being resembling men in 
the moral attributes of his nature, having called us out of 
non-existence, and after inflicting on us the misery of the 
commission of error, should superadd that of the punish- 
ment and the privations consequent upon it, still would 
remain inexplicable and incredible. That there is a true 
solution of the riddle, and that in our present state the 
solution is unattainable by us, are propositions which 
may be regarded as equally certain; meanwhile, as it is 
the province of the poet to attach himself to those ideas 
which exalt and ennoble humanity, let him be permitted 

^ June 11, 1811, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 102. 
^ June 20, 1811, ibid., p. 108. 

(189) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

to have conjectured the condition of that futurity towards 
which we are all impelled by an inextinguishable thirst 
for immortality. Until better arguments can be produced 
than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself 
must remain the strongest and the only presumption that 
eternity is the inheritance of every thinking being. 

Even while Shelley was writing of immortality to Eliza- 
beth Hitchener, he considered himself, as he informed 
her, to be an atheist.^ 



Page 53. On leaving London for Wales 

DowDEN, attempting to date this poem, wrote in his copy- 
book: "date ?Nov 1812 or Summer of 1811. I think Nov 
1812." And to this Richard Garnett has added in pencil: 
"Yes. RG." The reason for the selection of the two dates 
is that Shelley only twice left London for Wales, once in 
July 1811, when he went to Cwm Elan prior to eloping 
with Harriet Westbrook, and once in October 1812, when 
he returned to Tremadoc. 

Dowden gives one of his reasons for favoring the latter 
date in a note opposite "Snowdon's" (line 30): "Snowdon 
— Shelley describes in a letter to Hogg the beauty of the 
road under Snowdon from Capel Cerig to Tremadoc." 
The letter was written on February 7, 1813, to Hogg in 
London. In it Shelley, urging Hogg to visit him at Trema- 
doc, informs him that the coach from London "passes 
at the foot of Snowdon." ^ So that Shelley himself expected 
to pass the mountain on his way from London to Trema- 
doc. He would not, however, have passed Snowdon on 

8 October 8, 1811, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 152: "You will enquire 
how / an Atheist chose to subject myself to the ceremony of marriage." 

9 Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 44. 

(190) 



COMMENTARIES 

his way to Cwm Elan, which was much further south 
(near Rhayader). 

The poem, in fact, can be understood only against the 
background of Shelley's visit to London in October and 
November 1812. The main purpose of the visit was to 
raise money for an embankment at Tremadoc which a 
liberal Member of Parliament, William Madocks (after 
whom the town was named), had begun in order to rescue 
land from the sea. Shelley had worked on this project 
briefly in September. The enthusiasm with which he threw 
himself into it is conveyed in a speech he made before the 
town corporation at Beaumaris shortly before leaving for 
London (as reported in the North Wales Gazette). 

From London, Shelley went to his native Sussex hoping 
to raise money — and failed: "In Sussex I meet with no 
encouragement. They are a parcel of cold, selfish, and cal- 
culating animals, who seem to have no other aim or busi- 
ness, on earth, but to eat, drink, and sleep; but in the 
mean while my fervid hopes, my ardent desires, my un- 
remitting personal exertions (so far as my health will 
allow), are all engaged in that cause, which I will desert 
but with my life."'^ His last hope was the Duke of Nor- 
folk. But the Duke "regretted that he had no funds at his 
immediate disposal. "^ That this experience must have 
been bitter — "we submitted to a galling yet unappeal- 
able necessity"^ — has been clear but how deeply Shelley 
had been shaken by it has not been realized by his biog- 
raphers. 

Let us take, for instance, the following lines (51-54): 

The storm fleets by and calmer thoughts succeed, 
Feelings once more mild reason's voice obey. 

^ To John Williams, November 7, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 23. 

2 Hogg, Shelley, I, 368. 

8 To Fanny Imlay, December 10, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 31. 

(>9>) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Woe be the tyrants' and murderers' meed. 
But Nature's wound alone should make their Conscience 
bleed. 

In terms of the total stanza what Shelley is saying is 
that one should not be tempted to use violence against 
"tyrants" and "murderers," but should let "Nature's woimd 
alone" "make their Conscience bleed." "Nature's wound," 
here, really does not make sense unless it is taken as a 
reference to the embankment; failure to complete it would 
keep land under the sea and prevent it from being cul- 
tivated. Similarly in the previous stanza the "rocks to ruin 
hurled" (line 42) must refer to the rocks that are being 
rolled down the mountains in order to build the embank- 
ment, a project which would create a triumph for "Rea- 
son." "Tyrants" and "murderers" (and those boimd by 
"Custom's obduracies" — line 24) must be aimed primarily 
at those who, like the Duke of Norfolk, had refused to 
assist the project. The "storm" refers to Shelley's initial 
rage at this refusal. 

Although so much of the poem is personal, it is not en- 
tirely so. During Shelley's stay in London the British gov- 
ernment declared war on the United States, a general elec- 
tion was waged in which the Tories slandered the reform 
Whigs, and Moscow was burned, an event which Shel- 
ley, back in his mountain fastness, turned into verse: 

Hark to that roar, whose swift and deaf'ning peals 
In countless echoes through the mountains ring. 
Startling pale midnight on her starry throne!'* 

Similarly Shelley's attack on London no doubt received 
added bite from his recent experiences there, but Shelley, 
raised in the country, never did have much use for the 
city: 

* Queen Mab, IV, 38-40. 

(192) 



COMMENTARIES 

Hell is a city much like London — 
A populous and smoky city.^ 

On the other hand, he was under no illusion that those 
living in the mountains were more enlightened than those 
in the city: "The society in Wales is very stupid. They 
are all aristocrats or saints."^ "Mountain Liberty" (line 
23) is a natural, not a social, phenomenon. Nature may 
or may not affect the mind. To those responsive to its 
magnificence, Snowdon (and Shelley here anticipates 
"Mont Blanc") makes human evil seem small and dim 
("Lethe"). 

The stanza form of the poem, we may note, is the Spen- 
serian, previously used in "Henry and Louisa" and later 
in The Revolt of Islam. To judge from the archaism of 
line 27 — "Blots out the unholiest rede of worldly wit- 
nessing" — Shelley had recently been reading Spenser.''' 



Page 5<5. A winter's day 

DowDEN notes in his copybook: "1811-12 Keswick or 1812- 
13 Tanyrallt." "Tanyrallt" was the name of the house 
that Shelley rented at Tremadoc. So Dowden assumed 
that we have once more a choice between the tAvo winters 
spent in the mountains — a reasonable assumption, for the 
verse, spotty though it is, is still rather smoother than 
most of Shelley's writing in i8og or 1810, Of the two win- 

^ Peter Bell the Third, III, i. 

^ To T. J. Hogg, December 3, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, 
IX, 28. 

''Ibid., p. 34. After returning to Wales from London, Shelley ordered a 
list of books from Hookham. In it he included Spenser's "Works Fairy 
Queen &c. (Cheapest poss. Edit.)." Perhaps he had been reading Spenser 
in London and wished to continue his studies. Possibly the line was added 
after Spenser's "Works" arrived. See the Textual Note on this line. 

(193) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

ters, Dowden appears to have favored that of 1812-1813, 
for he added in reference to the "cascade" of line 4: "Hogg 
says that Shelley was enthusiastic about the Welsh water- 
falls." 

Dowden perhaps also had in mind that the previous 
poem was written either at Tremadoc or in London just 
before Shelley left for Tremadoc in October 1812. Shel- 
ley, however, is not using a rigid chronological sequenc- 
ing. The next two poems were probably written at Dublin 
in the spring of 1812, and after that we are back at Keswick 
in January 1812. 

So far as the waterfalls are concerned, there were also 
waterfalls near Keswick, and perhaps more likely to be 
"murmuring" ones than those in the Welsh mountains. 
"The moor" (line 12), however, definitely tips the balance 
toward Keswick. There are no moors in the rugged moun- 
tains around Tremadoc, but there are moors to the east 
of the Lake District and Shelley passed through them when 
in November he had traveled on the coach road from York 
to Keswick. We might note also that the style of "A winter's 
day" is similar to that of "To November," the death theme 
to that of "To Harriet ('Never, O never')," and the "pas- 
sion" reference to that in "Passion." 

It is interesting to note in some of these poems Shelley's 
echoings of eighteenth-century poetic diction, for instance, 
"peals of vernal music." Shelley — unlike Byron — later 
moved so far from these Augustan roots that we are apt 
to forget that they existed. 



Page ^8. To Liberty 

A POEM by Shelley on liberty could, of course, have been 
written any time between late 1809 and the compilation 

(194) 



COMMENTARIES 

of the Notebook. But Shelley usually dates the earlier 
poems, and there are parallels with Queen Mab in this 
poem which indicate a later date.^ The final stanzas on the 
downfall of monarchies and their thrones and prisons is a 
kind of summary of the first half of the final canto of 
Queen Mab. In Queen Mab the "palace of the monarch- 
slave" becomes a "heap of crumbling ruins";^ the "ponder- 
ous chains" of the "prison's mouldering courts" have 
"rusted amid heaps of broken stone. "^ The line "The 
pyramids shall fall" appears as "Those pyramids shall 
fall/'2 and the final lines anticipate the opening of Canto 
IX: "O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!" The general senti- 
ments of the second stanza and others are echoed in: 

Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp. 

Was but the mushroom of a summer day, 

That his [Time's] light-winged footstep pressed to dust: 

Time was the king of earth: all things gave way 

Before him, but the fixed and virtuous will, 

The sacred sympathies of soul and sense. 

That mocked his fury and prepared his fall.^ 

The poem, then, was almost certainly written between 
the late fall of 1811 and the period of composition of 
Queen Mab. There is some indication also that it might 
have been written either during Shelley's Irish expedition 
in 1812 (as was the next poem) or shortly thereafter. In a 
letter from Dublin, Shelley included other material that 
went into Queen Mab,'^ and he is much concerned with 

^The concept for Queen Mab first appeared in a letter to Elizabeth 
Kitchener: December ii, 1811, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 213. 

^ Queen Mab, IX, 94, 96. 

^Ibid., 119, 114, 120. 

^Ibid., II, 129; see also IX, 26-30. 

^Ibid., IX, 31-7. 

^To Elizabeth Hitchener, February 14, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, 
VIII, 271. 

(195) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

having some American children (pupils of Elizabeth Kitch- 
ener) visit him; Harriet's sentiments in a letter to Elizabeth 
Kitchener in March 1812 doubtless echo Shelley's: "Do we 
not find tyranny and oppression everywhere? have you not 
plenty of it, even in your peaceful village? 'tis everywhere. 
— Yes! there is one spot where it is not — America. We 
know an Am[erican]: he says he has not seen a beggar 
there for this 8 years. "^ With this we might compare lines 
26-30. The note of defiance in the poem and its assertion 
of future victory seem to have a deeper and more personal 
tone than in "The Crisis." In the "free and fearless soul" 
(line 16) who is considering defiance of tyranny with its 
prison and slander, Shelley doubtless has himself partly in 
mind (as he did later in Lionel of Rosalind and Helen), 
and this mood accords with that engendered by his Irish 
experience. Before he went to Ireland poverty and tyranny 
were abstractions; in Ireland they became realities. 



Page 60. On Robert Emmet's Tomb 

Emmet's execution (in 1803) by the British authorities, 
following his abortive rebellion, so moved Southey that he 
immediately sat down to write a poem on the subject. 
Shelley had doubtless long admired Emmet^ but his in- 
terest may have been further stimulated by Southey. When 
he left Keswick for Ireland he had a letter of introduction 
from Godwin to John Philpot Curran and met him several 
times. As Curran's daughter Sarah had been Emmet's sweet- 
heart (the story inspired Moore's "She is far from the 



^ March lo, 1812, ibid., p. 293. 

*See Commentary to "The Monarch's funeral," below p. 200. 



(196) 



COMMENTARIES 

land"), Shelley perhaps heard a good deal about him from 
Currant 

From the poem itself it appears that Shelley visited 
Emmet's tomb. Apparently he composed it just before or 
just after leaving Ireland on April 4, for in a letter to 
Elizabeth Hitchener shortly after his return he commented: 
"I have written some verses on Robert Emmett, which you 
shall see, and which I will insert in my book of Poems. "^ 

When Hogg visited the Shelleys in London some six 
months later, he found that they had brought back from 
Ireland a broadside on Emmet's trial, which Harriet 
showed him with some emotion.^ 

Emmet's burial place is something of a mystery. He was 
first buried in the burial grounds known as Bully's Acre 
or Hospital Fields, where executed criminals and paupers 
were interred. But a short time later, according to R. R. 
Madden, the body was "removed with great privacy and 
buried in Dublin."^ Madden, who was the leading authority 
on the Irish revolutionaries of this period, found that there 
were two conflicting stories on where the body was buried 
after its removal, one favoring Michan's Churchyard — 
where "a large stone without any writing on it was laid 
over the grave" — and the other favoring St. Anne's 
Churchyard, where Emmet's parents were buried. Of the 
two. Madden inclines toward Michan's Churchyard, where 
he found the stone in question. This is apparently the 
burial ground visited by Shelley: 

No trump tells thy virtues — the grave where they rest 
With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame. 

^ Perhaps not all of it favorable. See Leslie Hale, ]ohn Philpot Curran 
(London, 1958), p. 232. 

^ Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 309. 

^ Hogg, Shelley, I, 366. 

^ R. R. Madden, The Life and Tiines of Robert Emmet (New York, 
1857). P- 230. 

(197) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

The reason for the lack of writing on the stone is to be 
found in Emmet's final speech at his trial: 

Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows 
my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice 
or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and 
peace; my memory be left in oblivion and my tomb re- 
main uninscribed, until other times and other men can 
do justice to my character. When my country takes her 
place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till 
then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.^ 



Page 62. a Tale of Society as it is 

Shelley included the first 78 lines of this poem in a letter 
to Elizabeth Hitchener from Keswick on January 7, 1812, 
with the introductory comment: "I now send you some 
Poetry: the subject is not fictitious. It is the overflowings 
of the mind this morning." Following the poem he added: 
"The facts are real: that recorded in the last fragment of 
a stanza is literally true. The poor man said: 'None of my 
family ever came to parish, and I w[oul'\d starve first. I am 
a poor man; but I could never hold my head up after that.' 
— Adieu, my dearest friend. Think of the Poetry which 
I have inserted as a picture of my feelings, not a specimen 
of my art."^ 

That Shelley had, as he stated, just written the poem is 
indicated by the fact that it is incomplete in the letter; if 
he had finished it he would presumably have sent all of it 
to Elizabeth Hitchener. It may be, too, that he had actually 
written the first 78 lines in one morning, for he composed 
rapidly. After sending those lines to Elizabeth Hitchener he 

2 Hale, op. cit., p. 229. 

3 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 238. 

(■98) 



COMMENTARIES 

finished the poem and made some minor changes in word- 
ing. 

The genre of the poem is that established by Words- 
worth in "The Cumberland Beggar" and similar poems, 
namely, the tale of "humble" life told in deliberately un- 
adorned style. This genre had been used by Southey and 
Coleridge to spread radical social views, for instance, in 
"The Soldier's Wife": 

Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony. 

As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe, 

Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy haggard face. 

Ne'er will thy husband return from the war again. 

Cold is thy heart, and as frozen as Charity! 

Cold are thy children. — Now God be thy comforter! 

The first of these stanzas, Southey informs us, was 
written by Coleridge, and if Southey told Shelley this at 
Keswick it would have impressed the poem on his mind. 

Just when Shelley finished his poem we do not know, 
but the additional material seems to be superior to the 
preceding stanzas, for instance, lines 89-go: 

The same kind light feeds every living thing 
That spreads its blossoms to the breath of spring. 



Page 6y. The solitary 

Shelley himself dates this poem "1810." In the early 
months of 1810 he was at Eton, in the summer at Field 
Place, in the fall at Oxford, and in the winter back at Field 
Place for the Christmas vacation (which began about 

( 199) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

December lo).^ As he also seems to have hesitated about 
the date, apparently first writing 1811 and then changing 
it to 1810, there is some reason for favoring Field Place 
and the Christmas vacation as the place and time of com- 
position. The gloomy mood of the poet in contrast to the 
"genial bowl" of line 15 is similar to that expressed in his 
letters to Hogg during this vacation, for example: "Oh 
here we are in the midst of all the uncongenial jollities 
of Xmass, when you are compelled to contribute to the 
merriment of others."^ 

The poem is one of several in this book which anticipate 
Alas tor, not, of course, in style or merit but in theme: the 
"isolated" poet who "cannot, cannot love" and contem- 
plates suicide. 

This is the first also of two poems in the Notebook 
which ^vere published either in whole or in part by W. M. 
Rossetti in his 1870 edition of Shelley's poems from manu- 
scripts in the "command" of Richard Garnett.® 



Page 68. The Monarch' s funeral 

Shelley also dated this poem "1810" and the probability 
is, as with the previous poem, that it was written late in 
the year. The monarch whose death is anticipated was, of 
course, George III; and George became seriously ill after 
the death of his favorite daughter, Amelia, on November 
2, 1810. In January 1811 his condition was so serious that 
Parliament passed the Regency Act. 



* Shelley and his Circle, II, 659. ^Ibid., p. 676. 

« Shelley, Rossetti ed., 1870, I, xvii; see ibid., II, 507-8, 599. See also 
below, pp. 218, 238. 



( 200) 



I The Esdaile Notebook 



:SS^M.. 







II "Field Place," a recent photograph. With the exception of 
the pillared portico (added in 1846) the house appears essen- 
tially as it did in Shelley's day. Shelley was born in the upper 
room o£ the right wing, which has two windows facing front 
and one, partly obscured by the chimney, facing to the side. 



i'Cy^<tj hT^e^/- //i>d£^ ^*<^ et/>a^ r 

i 

I 

i 



III The dedicatory poem, with the title in Harriet's hand 









''^. 



'tCTjlti,^^'^ ^'^ c- 



IV The last line of "A retrospect of Times of Old," with Shel- 
ley's line count following it; the opening of "The Voyage"; 
the conclusion of the final footnote of "A retrospect of 
Times of Old" 



Jk^H^ V^ fiL^Hc^ 



/(9og 



Mjl 0(014) ftrr l(rt^ ^ ^/^y^4^^^ 

T 









V The first page of "Henry and Louisa' 



y^p^^^Ui' /7r^ ^^rr^/ '/^ r^y^o"^ /^^^^ ^^^^>^ 



^' / X . ' / 






/- 



/7 *^/;^-^// /> y^^A ^n/?^^y^i^ /^^^i^^ 



c/ 



d/^-A\ ^/f/?/^/^' i^^^/C'^' A/^^'.y^ ^-^/-^'^f-^^ 1*- ^^ 



VI The final page of "Zeinab and Kathema," showing Shelley's 
corrections 






)7^.- ^'X. ^ . , ; . ' .^yf^/.^.^:^^, , // j/,^<^ ^s^ ^ 






■^ 



('- 






/4^^ /i.-^^ 



.■^ 



y^.^. 



r< 



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VII The first page of "To Harriett ('Thy look of love')," in Har- 
riet Shelley's hand 




VIII Shelley's "St. Irvyne," where he and Harriet Grove went for 
moonlight walks (actually "Hill Place," owned first by Lady 
Irvine and then by the Duke of Norfolk) 



COMMENTARIES 

The Irish patriot whose death is mourned (line 21-31) is 
perhaps Robert Emmet/ to whom Southey, Moore, and 
other poets wrote tributes (possibly the "lays" of line 25). 
Shelley had been interested in the Irish cause at least since 
October 1809, which is the date he appended to "The Irish- 
man's Song" in Original Poetry. 

Line 38 may be paraphrased as follows: "Who [now] 
exploits the poor so that he may dine off gold plate?" In 
lines 57-8 "dross" is the subject of "supplies" and "earth" 
its object. 



Page 77. To the Republicans of North America 

Shelley enclosed this poem, except for the fourth stanza, 
in a letter to Elizabeth Hitchener from Dublin on February 
14, 1812, with the introductory comment: "Have you heard 
[that] a new republic is set up in Mexico? I have just 
written the following short tribute to its success."^ On 
March 10 he wrote: "The Republic of Mexico proceeds and 
extends. I have seen American papers, but have not had 
time to read them, I only know that the spirit of Repub- 
licanism extends in South America, and that the prevailing 
opinion is that there will soon be no province which will 
recognize the ancient dynasty of Spain. "^ 

The reference is to the revolution in Mexico led first 
by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who in 1810 gathered 
an army of some 80,000 peasants and captured several cities 
(a rebellion still celebrated by a national holiday in Mex- 



'^ See Commentary to "On Robert Emmet's tomb," above, p. 196. 
8 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 272. 
^ Ibid., p. 292. 



(201) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

ico). The following year he was defeated in battle and 
executed by the Spanish authorities. But the struggle was 
continued by another member of the lower clergy. Father 
Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon. In 1812 Morelos and his peas- 
ant army seized considerable territory, capturing Oaxaca 
in November; in September 1813 a congress was convened 
and in November Mexican independence was proclaimed. 
Two years later, however, Morelos was executed and the 
revolutionary congress dissolved. 

As the poem was first written in February 1812 and inde- 
pendence was not proclaimed until November 1813, pre- 
sumably Shelley had seen in the "American papers" a 
manifesto of liberty issued during the course of the 
struggle. 

The title, as the Textual Notes indicate, is puzzling. In 
the letter the poem has no title. In the Notebook Shelley 
first wrote "To the Republicans of New Spain" (the Vice- 
royalty of New Spain being the official name for all the 
Spanish colonies of Central and North America). He then 
wrote "outh" through part of "New Spain," but neglected 
to change the long sweeping capital "N." This gives us 
"Nouth," and an opportunity to try to guess whether 
Shelley meant North or South. Of the two "North" seems 
preferable: if Shelley had finally settled on "South" he 
would surely have changed the initial capital "N"; "New 
Spain" indicates that he was still thinking primarily of 
North America (the Spanish possessions in South America 
were the Viceroyalties of New Granada, Peru, and La 
Plata). However, as his letter of March 10 shows, he was 
interested also in the revolutions in South America, and 
this interest, too, is expressed in the poem: Moimt Coto- 
paxi (line 21) is not in Mexico but in South America 
(Ecuador). The curious hybrid "Nouth" probably reflects 

( 202 ) 



COMMENTARIES 

this dual interest. Mount Cotopaxi, we might note, is an 
active volcano, and, hence, makes a fitting revolutionary 
symbol.^ 

Why did Shelley change the title from "New Spain" to 
"North America"? Perhaps because he objected to using the 
official Spanish title as implying colonial domination. But 
another factor may have entered in. Between the time of 
writing the poem and compiling the Notebook, the 
British-American War of 1812 had broken out. It may be 
that Shelley intended his title to hint at seditious support 
for North American republicans in the United States. 

Lines 35-6: 

Blood may fertilize the tree 
Of new bursting Liberty 

seem to echo the close of Barere de Vieuzac's speech before 
the French National Convention (at the trial of Louis XVI) 
in which he demanded the death penalty: "The tree of 
liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants."^ 
The fourth stanza, which contains these lines, may have 
been composed later than the rest. The first three stanzas 
are written with fairly thick ink strokes, the last two with 
thin ones. Shelley may, of course, simply have stopped to 
sharpen his pen or pick up a new one as he copied, but it is 
curious that this fourth stanza is omitted in the letter to 
Elizabeth Hitchener. The striking line "Slow to Peace and 
swift to blood" could serve as the epitaph of many a 



1 And possibly it inspired a passage in The Revolt of Islam (II, xiv); see 
G. M. Matthews, "A Volcano's Voice in Shelley," A Journal of English 
Literary History, XXIV (September 1957), 199-200. 

2 The same thought had been expressed by Thomas Jefferson in a letter 
to W. S. Smith, November 13, 1787: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed 
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural 
manure." 



(203) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

"tyrant." The "desolated world" of the final stanza is per- 
haps echoed in the fall of Jupiter in Prometheus Unbound: 

This desolated world, and thee, and me. 

The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck 

Of that for which they combated.^ 



Page 75. Written at Cwm Ellan^ 

"CwM Elan," near Rhayader in southern Wales, was the 
ten-thousand-acre estate of Shelley's cousin Thomas Grove. 
Shelley was at Cwm Elan on two occasions, in the summer 
of 1811, without Harriet, and in the spring of 1812, with 
Harriet. That this poem was written on the first of these 
visits can be seen by comparing it with a poem which was 
written on the second, "The Retrospect." 

In "The Retrospect," as its title implies, Shelley is look- 
ing back on his first visit. In it he describes, for instance, 
that aversion to daylight and love for night expressed in 
"Written at Cwm Elian": 

For day with me, was time of woe 
When even tears refused to flow. 

Something of both the mood and the natural background 
of "Written at Cwm Elian" appears in a comment in a letter 
to Elizabeth Hitchener from Cwm Elan on July 26, 1811: 

Nature is here marked with the most impressive charac- 
ter of loveliness and grandeur, once I was tremulously 
alive to tones and scenes . . . the habit of analysing feel- 
ings I fear does not agree with this . . . Rocks, piled on 

^Prometheus Unbound, III, i, 77-9. 

* In his letters Shelley spells the word "Elan"; so, too, do the road guides 
of the time. In other sources it is sometimes spelled "Elian." 

(204) 



COMMENTARIES 

each other to an immense height, and clouds intersecting 
them, in other places waterfalls midst the umbrage of a 
thousand shadowy trees form the principal features of 
the scenery. I am not wholly uninfluenced by its magic 
in my lonely walks, but I long for a thunderstorm — ^ 

"Written at Cwm Elian" has to be considered in con- 
junction with "Dark Spirit of the desart rude" and "Death- 
spurning rocks!" 



Page 7^. To Death 

While Shelley and Hogg were at Oxford, Shelley presented 
him with five short manuscripts, two of prose pieces (one 
of them a translation), three of poems.^ Among the poetry 
was a manuscript of the first 48 lines of "To Death." This 
manuscript (which is now in The Carl H. Pforzheimer 
Library)^ is on a single sheet, written on both sides, and 
its final line ("To that mysterious strand") is at the bottom 
of the second page. Presumably there was a second sheet 
which contained the final 20 lines; but, if so, Hogg never 
possessed it, for he comments: "The following unfinished 
verses were written at Oxford; they have never been pub- 
lished."^ Thus there were at least two early manuscripts 
of the poem, one that Shelley gave to Hogg (with a page 
missing) and one that he kept. Apparently the version that 
he kept did not have all the changes he made in the copy 
given to Hogg, for of these changes only one ("ebon wing" 
in line 3 for "hand of fate") appears in the Notebook ver- 
sion. In lines 19 and 44 he retained his original wording. 

5 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 133. 

^Shelley and his Circle, II, 644, 665-6. See also above, p. 235. 

''Ibid., pp. 641-3. 

*Hogg, Shelley, I, 124. My italics (K.N.C.). 

(205) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

The manuscript that he kept may, then, have been an 
earlier version. And this appears to be so for other poems 
also. 

Shelley and Hogg were together at Oxford from the 
opening of the fall term in 1810 until they were expelled 
on March 25, 1811, with the exception of the Christmas 
vacation, which ran from about December 10 to about 
January 22.^ The poem would have fitted well in The 
Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, which ap- 
peared about the middle of November, but it is not in that 
volume. It was, then, perhaps written later than September 
or October. It is not, despite Ingpen's indication, dated 
"1810" in the Esdaile Notebook.^ 

As the poem begins with an echo from Pope's "The 
Dying Christian to His Soul,"^ it is difficult to tell who is 
speaking. At first the poem sounds rather like a monologue 
by a historical or fictional character, but further reading 
— in the light of Shelley's penchant for the autobiographi- 
cal — shows it to be a personal poem. The "I" is Shelley 
and the "death" being contemplated is his own. Although 
a number of his early poems have a gloomy, almost suicidal 
note, this is particularly marked in his letters of late De- 
cember 1810 and January 1811, when the final crisis in 
his relations with Harriet Grove took place. He apparently 
went to London and perhaps to Fern (in Wiltshire) in 
search of her. He may have been informed by her brothers 
of her engagement. Whatever happened, he went into a 
deep depression: "I have wandered in the snow for I am 
cold we[t] — & mad."^ "Is suicide wrong? I slept with a 
loaded pis-tol & some poison last night but did not die . . . 

^ Shelley and his Circle, II, 659. 

1 Shelley, Complete Works, III, 73. 

2 Pope himself, of course, was echoing the Bible (I Corinthians: XV, 
55, a passage included in the Church of England burial service). 

3 To T. J. Hogg, January 1, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 679. 

(206) 



COMMENTARIES 

But can the dead feel, dawns any daybeam on the night of 
dissolution?"* 

In these comments (in letters to Hogg) he speaks only of 
his own death; in the poem he writes also of the slaughter 
of war (again, the Napoleonic wars), a pacifist theme with 
which Hogg had no sympathy. 

The thought in the tangled and compressed lines from 
49 to 52 seems to run somewhat as follows: It is well that 
Vice (vicious people) should know no pain except ("but") 
that of the sting of conscience ("memory"), for (the un- 
spoken thought apparently runs) this is the worst of all; the 
joy of Virtue (the virtuous person) comes also from con- 
science. 



Page yy. Dark Spirit of the desart rude 

"Ellan's foamy course" (line 10) informs us that this poem 
was written at Cwm Elan. Parallels with "The Retrospect" 
show that, like "Written at Cwm Elian," it was a product 
of the 1811 visit. In "The Retrospect," Shelley tells of his 
former loneliness and depression and contrasts it with his 
present (1812) happiness with Harriet beside him: 

My darksome spirit sought. It found 
A friendless solitude around. . . . 

Have not your varied beauties seen 

The sunken eye, the withering mien. 

Sad traces of the unuttered pain 

That froze my heart and burned my brain? 

4 To T. J. Hogg, January 3, i8ii, ibid., p. 684. Shelley, as usual, is more 
affirmative about immortality in his poetry than in his letters or other 
prose. In the poem (lines 18-21) he exempts "love" from the power of 
death. 



(207) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

How changed since nature's summer form 
Had last the power my grief to charm, 
Since last ye soothed my spirit's sadness — 
Strange chaos of a mingled madness!^ 

Considered in this light, "Dark Spirit of the desart rude" 
is seen to be another precursor of Alastor. In Alastor the 
"spirit of solitude" is depicted as a destructive power, 
the young poet-hero following it helplessly to his death. 
The theme clearly had a powerful hold on Shelley's mind. 

Shelley as a boy on the family estate had apparently led 
a rather lonely life, and at Eton he liked to go off for long 
walks either alone or with one companion. Solitude is a 
theme, although not a major one, in his juvenile novels. 
When he was left alone in London, following his expulsion 
from Oxford, he wrote to Hogg: "I cannot endure the 
horror the evil which comes to self in solitude."^ But al- 
though Shelley had long had a dread of solitude, the con- 
cept of it as a destructive agent, an "alastor," perhaps first 
grew during these weeks at Cwm Elan in the summer 
of 1811. 

In "Written at Cwm Elian" and "Dark Spirit of the 
desart rude" Shelley is too close to this experience and in- 
sufficiently advanced as a poet to render a coherent picture. 
He is tormented by a spirit of solitude which he hunts but 
is unable to find. Looking around he sees only a "desolate 
Oak" (line 35). This oak was perhaps a product of the 
poetic imagination. Hogg wrote a poem on an oak being 
strangled by ivy, and sent it to Shelley, who commented 
on it in a letter on January 12, 1811, taking the oak as a 
reference to himself and the ivy to Harriet Grove. ^ Perhaps 



5 See above, pp. 157-8, lines 84-5, 128-35. 

® May 8, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 770. 

''Ibid., pp. 696-9, 705-6. 

(208) 



COMMENTARIES 

these associations came into his mind when, some seven 
months later, he wrote "Dark Spirit of the desart rude." 
The matter is further complicated by the fact that Hogg's 
poem (and perhaps Shelley's also) was influenced by an 
earlier (1798) poem by Robert Southey, "The Oak of our 
Fathers."^ In his final lines Shelley gives the poem an anti- 
monarchical twist not present in either Southey or Hogg. 



Page 7p. The pale, the cold and the moony smile 

Except for "Falshood and Vice" and the other lines in 
the Queen Mab volume,® this is the only one of the Esdaile 
Notebook poems that Shelley himself published. And it 
is the only one that he published in a volume later than 
the period during which he compiled the Notebook, 
namely, in Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude, and Other 
Poems (1816). This does not necessarily signify that he 
later felt it was the only poem in the Notebook worth 
publishing. For most of them he apparently retained no 
other manuscript, and those on Harriet he would have 
hesitated to publish after the break-up of their marriage. 
But the fact that he did keep another manuscript of this 
poem and later published it perhaps indicates special 
regard for it. Such regard would certainly have been justi- 
fied, for of all the poems in the book this one foreshadows 
most surely Shelley's lyric gifts (in spite of "moony" in 
line 1). 

When the poem appeared in the Alastor volume it con- 

s Hogg's dependence on Southey is clear; for instance, both have images 
of the ivy drinking the sap of the tree. I fail, however, to note any verbal 
echoes from Southey in Shelley although the general concept is similar. 

9 The dedication "To Harriet ('Whose is the love')" and lines 58-69 of 
"To Harriet ('It is not blasphemy')." 

(209) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

tained a good many changes — nearly all of them for the 
better. For instance, the new third stanza reads as follows: 

This world is the nurse of all we know, 
This world is the mother of all we feel, 

And the coming of death is a fearful blow, 

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel; 

When all that we know, or feel, or see. 

Shall pass like an unreal mystery. 

The weak first two lines are changed entirely (except 
for the rhyme words), the awkward and over long "nerve- 
strings" is changed to "nerves," the loose and dragging "we 
feel and we see" is tightened into "or feel, or see," and 
the whole line is given a firm beat, the trite "fleet by," for 
instance, being changed to the simple but strong "pass." 
The poem is, in fact, immeasurably improved, and a study 
of the two texts reveals a good deal about Shelley's criti- 
cal insights as well as his poetic development. 

In the Alastor volume, the poem has no title, but it 
is headed thus: "There is no work, nor device, nor knowl- 
edge, nor wisdom, in the giave, whither thou goest. — 
ECCLESiASTES." The quotation {Ecclesiastes, ix, lo), how- 
ever, is a taking-off point for the poem rather than an ex- 
planation of it. Shelley was not in complete agreement 
with the materialistic pessimism of Ecclesiastes. His view, 
as we have seen, was expressed in a letter to Elizabeth 
Hitchener on June 20, 1811: "I think I have a right to 
draw this inference, that neither will soul perish; that 
in a future existence it will lose all consciousness of hav- 
ing formerly lived elsewhere . . ."^ 

It is apparently this concept that Shelley has in mind 
in the difficult lines: 

1 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 108. 

(210) 



COMMENTARIES 

The secret things o£ the grave are there 
Where all but this body must surely be. 

The body decays but the mind or soul becomes part of 
"the secret things" of death, that is, of those forces which 
preserve soul, not individually but as part of a general 
spirit substance existing in (line ro) "the calm of eternal 
day." 

There is no indication in the manuscript of the date 
of the poem, but to judge by its merits it was probably 
one of the later ones. And this is supported by the fact 
that it is undated. (The only "later" poem which is dated 
is "The Voyage," 1812.) We might note also that Shelley 
made use of Ecclesiastes in Queen Mah (the opening of 
Canto V and its note).^ 



Page 81. Death-spurning rocks! 

Opposite this poem, in his copybook, Dowden makes the 
notation: "[?Cwm Elan Spring of 1812]," and after this 
Richard Garnett has written in pencil: "Probably." That 
Dowden and Garnett are right in linking the poem with 
Wales in indicated by the "jagged" rocks of the setting. 
But it sounds more like Shelley's first visit to Cwm Elan 
(1811) than his second (1812).^ And this, as with "Written 
at Cwm Elian" and "Dark Spirit of the desart rude," is 
supported by the similarity between the situation in the 

2 Ecclesiastes seems later to have been something of a favorite with 
Shelley; see Bennett Weaver, Toward the Understanding of Shelley (Uni- 
versity of Michigan Press, 1932), pp. 21-2, 138-44; Mary Shelley's Journal, 
p. 128, January 21, 1820. 

3 See Commentary to "Dark Spirit of the desart Hide," p. 207. 

(21.) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

poem and that described the following year in looking 
back on the 1811 visit in "The Retrospect." For instance, 
lines 11-13 of this poem are similar (in content though 
not in style) to lines 120-4 in "The Retrospect": 

Woods, to whose depth retires to die 
The wounded echo's melody, 
And whither this lone spirit bent 
The footstep of a wild intent — 

In the later poem, the "lone spirit" (the "maniac sufferer" 
of the earlier poem, who, in both cases, is Shelley) remem- 
bers the retreat in the woods and his impulse to suicide, 
and even echoes the words, "wild intent," to describe 
this impulse. 

In looking back on this crisis Shelley assigned to it not 
one but a number of causes. It was not only "unrequited 
love," nor hurt "pride," nor loneliness, nor "broken vows," 
but a combination of them all. What probably happened 
is that the shattering events of the previous months — the 
breaking off of their "engagement" by Harriet Grove, 
the expulsion from Oxford, the conflict with his family, 
the involvement in London with Harriet Westbrook — 
all of which he had suppressed by keeping continually 
active — burst upon him at once amid the quiet of Cwin 
Elan. (We find a similar phenomenon in Alastor, which 
reflects delayed reaction to the Harriet-Mary crisis of the 
previous year.) But of all the factors which Shelley lists as 
causing the crisis, the break with Harriet Grove seems to 
be the most important: 

For broken vows had early quelled 
The stainless spirit's vestal flame. 
Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled 
Then the envenomed arrow came 
And apathy's unaltering eye 
Beamed coldness on the misery. 

(212) 



COMMENTARIES 

Harriet Grove, Shelley seems to be saying, broke off 
their relationship just when they were becoming most 
intimate. Her brother, Charles Grove, describes the break 
as follows: "But she became uneasy at the tone of his 
letters on speculative subjects, at first consulting my 
mother, and subsequently my father also on the subject. 
This led at last, though I cannot exactly tell how, to the 
dissolution of an engagement between Bysshe and my 
sister, which had previously been permitted, both by his 
father and mine."^ 

It was, then, not only that Harriet made the break but 
the manner in which she made it (in the fall of 1810) 
that so wounded Shelley. Her discussing his letters with 
her parents he regarded as a betrayal, her conformity a 
retreat from a principled existence. Even then, however, 
he did not give up hope. The worst blow apparently came 
in December 1810 or January 1811, when he heard that 
she was engaged to a young landowner, William Helyar. 
His suffering was clearly acute. "She is gone, she is lost to 
me forever," he laments to Hogg;^ and his sister followed 
him when he went hunting for fear he would kill himself. 
During this whole critical period, from the autumn until 
the new year, he apparentlly felt nothing but "apathy" 
and "coldness" in his family and perhaps in Harriet her- 
self. In March came the expulsion and then (in early 
July) a few days with the second Harriet before leaving 
London, followed by the "short but violent nervous ill- 
ness" he informed Elizabeth Hitchener of during his 
first days at Cwm Elan.® 

Shelley may have thought that his "illness" was over. 



4Hogg, Shelley, II, 155. 

s January ii, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 701. 

^To Elizabeth Hitchener, [postmark: July 15, 1811], Shelley, Complete 
Works, VIII, 124. 



(213) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

but as the "Retrospect" indicates, it returned and per- 
sisted, in one degree or another, throughout his stay (of 
about one month). And how intense it was at times the 
present poem bears witness. As in the "Retrospect," one 
has the impression that the break with Harriet Grove was 
the bitterest blow. What else could the "snares" of "mem- 
ory" (line 14) that so torture him refer to? The "vain and 
bitter tears" seem to echo the letters he wrote to Hogg 
in January about the break: walking in the snow "cold, 
we[t] — & mad," sleeping with a loaded pistol,^ and so on. 
We find the same suicidal despair in the poem: "why need 
he live to weep who does not fear to die?" 

It is apparent from these poems that Shelley's attach- 
ment to Harriet Grove was deeper than has been gen- 
erally realized. Peacock deprecated it,^ but he never met 
Harriet Grove and did not not know Shelley at the time. 
Nor did Shelley (as Peacock himself makes clear) confide 
in him later. It may be objected that if he was still brood- 
ing over Harriet Grove in July he could not have been 
in love with Harriet Westbrook when he eloped with her 
in August. But to a young man of eighteen much is pos- 
sible. Furthermore, we do not know how much of the 
brooding in July was caused by the loss of love and how 
much by hurt pride and jealousy. Shelley tended to react 
violently whenever his will was blocked. "To Harriet ('It 
is not blasphemy')" indicates that by July his actual love 
for Harriet Grove was fading under the glow of his new 
interest in Harriet Westbrook. 

Shelley's feelings are so overwhelming that the poem is 
hardly a polished performance; but for all its lack of dis- 

'^To Hogg, January 1, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 679; to Hogg, 
January 3. 1811, ibid., p. 684. 
s Peacock, Memoirs, p. 60. 

(214) 



COMMENTARIES 

cipline it has a kind of jagged power, conveying a sense of 
wild, adolescent suffering. 

The initial image of the rocks gives more of a picture 
of geoglogical vistas than was usual at the time. The work 
and theories of Leibniz, Whiston, Cuvier, and others were 
providing the first clues to the immense age of the earth, 
and Shelley was an avid follower of the latest scientific 
theories.*^ 

The reference to the blasted and decaying oak tree both 
in this poem (lines 6-7) and in "Dark Spirit of the desart 
rude" (lines 34-7) perhaps indicates that both poems were 
composed in the same period. It may also, as we have seen, 
have had associations in Shelley's mind with his rejection 
by Harriet Grove. 

"Way-worn wanderer" (line 23) is apparently an echo 
from Southey's "The Soldier's Wife," which begins: 
"Weary way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart." "Weary, 
way-worn wanderer" appears in Edgar Allan Poe's "To 
Helen." 



Page 8^. The Tombs 

The reference to Erin in line 22 indicates that this poem 
was written in Dublin in 1812. Perhaps it is a kind of 
companion piece to "On Robert Emmet's tomb," which 
Shelley referred to in a letter to Elizabeth Hitchener 
shortly after he left Ireland.^ 

The line "When blood and chains defiled the land" 



8 King-Hele, Shelley, p. 158; Grabo, A Newton among Poets, pp. 175-80; 
Cameron, The Young Shelley, pp. 247-8, 393-4. 

1 [PApril 16, 1812], Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 309. See also Com- 
mentary, p. 196, above. 



(-'■5) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

(line 23) and the burning of the hearts of dead revolu- 
tionaries, must however, refer not to Emmet's small and 
abortive Putsch but to the rebellion of the United Irish- 
men, led by Wolfe Tone, in 1798. Shelley felt a special 
kinship with the United Irishmen, for many of them were 
not only nationalists but anti-clerical revolutionaries, and 
he made a special effort in Dublin to find those who were 
still alive. He doubtless received many firsthand accounts 
of the rebellion from his Irish friend Catherine Nugent, of 
whom Harriet wrote: "She has felt most severely the 
miseries of her country, in which she has been a very active 
member. She visited all the Prisons in the time of the Re- 
bellion, to exhort the people to have courage and hope. She 
says it was a most dreadful task; but it was her duty, and she 
would not shrink from the performance of it."- The bloody 
suppression of this rebellion, by Castlereagh, was notor- 
ious: 

Cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant! 
Dabbling its sleek young hands in Erin's gore.^ 

"The Tombs" is written in the Southeyan irregular 
blank verse which Shelley, as we have noted, apparently 
first used at Keswick, that is, in the months immediately 
preceding his trip to Ireland. The "phantasmal world" 
(line 20) with its "brute and morbid" shapes expresses a 
theory of the transitory nature of social evil which we find 
in Shelley's later poetry (for instance, in Hellas). It is most 
clearly expressed in his fragmentary novel The Assassins 
(1814): "The perverse, and vile, and vicious — what were 
they? Shapes of some unholy vision, moulded by the spirit 
of Evil, which the sword of the merciful destroyer should 
sweep from this beautiful world. Dreamy nothings; phan- 
tasms of misery and mischief, that hold their death-like 

2 March 18, 1812, ibid., p. 299. ^ gyj-on, Don Juan, Dedication, XII. 

(2.6) 



COMMENTARIES 

State on glittering thrones, and in the loathsome dens of 
poverty."* He considered social evil "phantasmal" be- 
cause it rests ultimately on the ideas — Opinion — which 
holds the social structure together: 

Opinion is more frail 
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon 
Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail 
To hide the orb of truth — and every throne 
Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon.^ 

If people could see through the falsity of these ideas society 
would be renovated: 

it is our will 
That thus enchains us to permitted ill.^ 

Evidently Shelley had the seeds of these concepts by 
1812 (some of them, as we shall see, by 1809). 



Page 8^. To Harriet (''It is not blasphemy") 

DowDEN in his copybook makes the following notes on 
this poem: 

?1812 8 lines have been pub"* from W Garnett's trans- 
cript of a Boscombe MS. 

Note the traces of Wordsworths Tintern Abbey 
Perhaps when Shelley came by Chepstow from Cwm Elan 
to Lynmouth, summer of 1812 he saw Tintern Abbey & 
was impressed by Wordsworths poem. 
I think this is a Lynmouth poem: its tone is like that of 
the Sonnet on Aug. 1. 1812. 

He then lists several parallels with "Tintern Abbey." 

4 Shelley, Complete Works, VI, 164. 

5 The Revolt of Islam, VIII, ix. See below, p. 253. 
^Julian and Maddalo, lines 170-1. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

That Southey showed Shelley a copy of Lyrical Ballads 
at Keswick is most probable; and Paterson's Roads (1811) 
shows that the coach road to Chepstow passed near Tin- 
tern AbbeyJ From Chepstow, Shelley went to Lynmouth, 
arriving there late in June 1812. Moreover, as the next 
poem in this volume is also to Harriet and is dated August 
1, 1812, it is probable that "To Harriet ('It is not blas- 
phemy')" was written at about the same time, that is, in 
the summer of 1812 in Devon. 

Twelve of the final lines (lines 58-69) Shelley published 
in one of the Notes to Queen Mab as a separate poem on 
time.^ In these lines Shelley, as he indicates in his note, 
is indebted to a passage in William Godwin's Political 
justice: "The indolent man reclines for hours in the shade; 
and, though his mind be perpetually at work, the silent 
progress of time is unobserved. But, when acute pain, or 
uneasy expectation, obliges consciousness to recur with un- 
usual force, the time appears insupportably long."^ 

Dowden notes that eight lines (lines 5-13) had been pub- 
lished from Richard Garnett's "transcript of a Boscombe 
MS." "A Boscombe MS," as we have seen, refers to a manu- 
script in the possession of Shelley's son, Sir Percy Florence 
Shelley, who lived at Boscombe Manor, near Bournemouth. 
The Boscombe text for these lines is identical with that 
in the Esdaile Notebook.^ 



^We might note also that when William Godwin went through Chep- 
stow on his way to see Shelley he visited Tintern Abbey. (Journal entries 
for Sept. 11, 12, 1812, Paul, Godwin, II, 209.) 

8 Shelley, Complete Works, I, 157. Note to VIII, 203. 

3 Godwin, Political Justice, I, 412. 

1 See Commentary to "The solitary," above, p. 199, and to "How elo- 
quent are eyes!," below, p. 238. The Boscombe manuscript lines were 
published by H. B. Forman (Shelley, Forman ed., 1877, p. 359) with the 
following note: "These lines were given by Mr. Rossetti from a transcript 
of Mr. Garnett's, taken from one of the Boscombe MSS. The date affixed 
by Mr. Rossetti is 1811." 



(2.8) 



COMMENTARIES 

Compared with Shelley's other verse of this period, the 
poem is technically quite skillful, its echoes of Words- 
worth (foreshadowing those in the opening lines of Alas- 
tor) no more than the usual dependence of the forming 
poetic mind upon models. It does, however, seem a curi- 
ously low-keyed poem for a young husband to write to a 
young wife, especially a husband capable of such inten- 
sity as Shelley. One has the impression of an immature 
relationship, one of "friendship" (line 42) rather than 
passion,^ and accompanied by some condescension: 

when some years have added judgement's store 
To all thy woman sweetness, all the fire 
Which throbs in thine enthusiast heart . . . 

It seems also that the poem was written after a quarrel 
or misunderstanding, although not a serious one, and that 
Shelley was trying to make up: 

wilt thou not turn 
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me . . . 

but to feel 
One soul-reviving kiss . . . 

Perhaps the most interesting lines biographically (and 
philosophically) come at the beginning: 

O Thou, 
Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path 
Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold. 
Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits 
Which mark the bounds of Time and of the space 
When Time shall be no more . . . 

If we compare this with the poetry that reflects Shelley's 
feelings at Cwm Elan in July 1811 and his joyous letter 

2 For a different view, see White, Shelley, I, 244-5. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

on August 3 to Hogg announcing that Harriet had "thrown 
herself upon my protection,"^ Shelley seems in these 
lines to be saying that he was rescued from a state of 
suicidal gloom by Harriet's love. 

Shelley in some of his early poems, as Bennett Weaver 
has commented, "seems to have fixed his mind upon in- 
timations of eternity."^ It is, however, not always easy to 
grasp his concept of the relation between time and eternity. 
"The space /When Time shall be no more" in the above 
lines is perhaps as close as he comes to a definition. ("Space" 
is used in a temporal sense, that is, the space of time after 
which time shall be no more.) But even this does not help 
us much when confronted with the image in a letter from 
Ireland, in which Time is called on to "burst the barriers 
of Eternity."^ The difficulty continues throughout Shel- 
ley's later works as well, culminating in the much-dis- 
cussed passage in Prometheus Unbound where the "past 
hours" "bear Time to his tomb in eternity." 



Page 88. Sonnet. To Harriet on her birth day 

Harriet Westbrook was born on August i, 1795.^ This 
sonnet, then, was written for her seventeenth birthday. 
"Somewhat" in line 2 is used in a substantive sense. One 
would gather from the final line, as from the beginning of 

3 Shelley and his Circle, II, 856. 

* "Shelley: The First Beginnings," Philological Quarterly, XXXII (April 
1953)' 186. We find a similar obsession with eternity also in Blake and 
the young Coleridge. 

5 To Elizabeth Hitchener, February 14, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, 
VIII, 271. In some of these concepts — and others in these poems — Shel- 
ley might have been indebted to the early poems of Coleridge, particularly 
"Religious Musings." 

^ Ingpen, Shelley in England, p. 265 n. 



( 220 ) 



COMMENTARIES 



the previous poem, that Harriet (and Eliza) had been 
pressing Shelley on his anti-religious views. 



Page 8p. Sonnet. To a balloon^ laden with 
Knowledge 

See Commentary to the next poem, "Sonnet. On launch- 
ing some bottles." 



Page go. Sonnet. On launching some bottles 

From Ireland, Shelley, as we have seen, went to Wales, 
and from Wales to Devon. He arrived in Devon on about 
June 24, 1812, and settled (until late August) at the sea- 
side village of Lynmouth near Linton on the west coast. 
There he worked on his Letter to Lord Ellenborough (a 
defense of the imprisoned republican journalist Daniel 
Isaac Eaton) and Queen Mah. But he did not devote all 
his time to writing. 

On August 19 his Irish servant, Daniel Healey, was 
arrested and sentenced to six months' imprisonment for 
circulating the broadside Declaration of Rights, which 
Shelley had written in Dublin. On the same day, Henry 
Drake, Town Clerk of nearby Barnstaple, wrote an agi- 
tated letter to Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary: 

The Mayor has also been informed that Mr. Shelley has 
been seen frequently to go out in a Boat a short distance 
from Land and drop some Bottles into the Sea, and that 
at one time he was observed to wade into the Water and 
drop a Bottle which afterwards drifting ashore was picked 
up, and on being broken was found to contain a seditious 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Paper, the Contents of which the Mayor has not yet been 
able to ascertain but will apprize your Lordship imme- 
diately on learning further particulars.'^ 

The "seditious paper" turned out to be "The Devil's 
Walk" (imitated from similar verses by Southey and Cole- 
ridge) Shelley's jeu d'esprit on the Prince Regent and 
other matters. The Home Secretary endorsed Drake's 
letter: "Recommend that Mr. Shelley's proceedings be 
watched if he is still at Linton. It would also be desirable 
to procure the address of his different correspondents, to 
whom he writes, from the post-office."^ 

In September, the Home Secretary, whose office pre- 
sided over a network of informers worthy of a Persian 
satrap, received a second communication, this one from 
John Hopkins, Inspecting Commander of Revenue Cruis- 
ers, Western District, enclosing a copy of Shelley's Declara- 
tion of Rights, one of his ships "having found the same in 
a Sealed Wine Bottle, floating near the Entrance of Mil- 
ford Haven on the loth Inst." The Inspecting Com- 
mander, after making inquiries, found that a similar 
bottle with similarly explosive contents had been picked 
up a few weeks previously near Lynmouth by one of his 
ships.^ 

The "knowledge," then, with which the bottles cele- 
brated in this sonnet were freighted, was presumably that 
to be garnered from Declaration of Rights and The Devil's 
Walk. So far as we know Shelley had no other printed 
works at the time small enough to place in a bottle. The 
balloon, if big enough, could also have carried the Letter 
to Lord Ellenborough (which was printed by August 4). 

''Peek, Shelley, I, 271. 

8 William Michael Rossetti, "Shelley in 1812-13," Fortnightly Review, 
n.s., IX (January 1871), 77. 

9 Hughes, The Nascent Mind of Shelley, p. 156. 

( 222 ) 



COMMENTARIES 



The "knowledge" in the bottles apparently traveled far 
and wide. Milford Haven is in Wales across the Bristol 
Channel from Lynmouth. The balloon presumably was 
wafted inland. 



Page pi. Sonnet. On waiting for a wind 

A SECOND letter from Henry Drake, Town Clerk of 
Barnstaple, to Lord Sidmouth, of September 9, 1812, 
opens as follows: 

Referring your Lordship to my letter of 20th ult., and 
in addition to the information therein contained, I beg 
to inform your Lordship that, not being enabled to ob- 
tain here sufficient information respecting Mr. Shelley, 
I went to Lymouth, where he resided, and returned 
yesterday. On my arrival there, I found he, with his 
family, after attempting in vain to cross the Channel to 
Swansea from that place, had lately left Lymouth for 
Ilfracombe; and, on my following him there, found he 
had gone to Swansea, where I imagine he at present is.^ 

If Shelley wished to sail from the village of Lynmouth 
to Wales he must have intended to hire a fishing boat or 
similar craft. From Ilfracombe, however, he would have 
had no trouble, for according to Paterson's Roads (1811), 
packet-boats sailed from Ilfracomb to Swansea every Mon- 
day and Thursday. 

Whether this sonnet was written during the first at- 
tempts to leave from Lynmouth or later at Ilfracombe we 
do not know (although Lynmouth seems more likely), but 
it must, in either case, have been written during the last 

1 William Michael Rossetti, "Shelley in 1812-13," Fortnightly Review, 
n.s., IX (January, 1871), 78. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

days of Shelley's stay in Devon. And these dates we know 
fairly accurately. 

On Saturday, September 19, William Godwin, arriving 
at Lynmouth to stay with the Shelleys, received a shock. 
"The Shelleys," he wrote in dismay to his wife, "have gone! 
have been gone these three weeks. "^ Now, Godwin was a 
precise man about dates; for instance, he also informs us 
that the Shelleys "had lived here nine weeks and three 
days." "These three weeks," then, is probably pretty close 
to the mark; and when we note that he wrote on a Saturday 
and that the packets for Swansea sailed on Mondays and 
Thursdays, the probability is that the Shelleys left for 
Swansea on Thursday, August 27. If we go back a further 
nine weeks and three days we can set the date of their 
arrival at Lynmouth at about June 22. 

This sonnet, then, was probably written between, say, 
August 24 and 27, 1812. 

That Shelley's activities in Devon were not so impracti- 
cal as some observers have thought is shown by the seri- 
ousness with which they were taken by the authorities. 
The situation in England in 1812 was explosive; there 
were outbreaks of frame breaking and food riots (including 
some in west Devon) and miners' strikes in Cornwall. 



Page p2. To Harriet ("Harriet! thy kiss to my 
soul is dear") 

There seems to be no specific indication of date in this 
poem. It is, however, placed with the Devon poems, and 
the final stanza could refer most appropriately to Shelley's 

2 Paul, Godwin, II, 211. 

(224) 



COMMENTARIES 

anti-government activities in Devon. Perhaps these had 
even frightened the "enthusiast" Harriet (certainly they 
must have frightened Eliza) and she may have remon- 
strated with Shelley. That there was trouble developing 
with Eliza may be implied in the "with me to live" of 
line 24, which is perhaps a hint — made specific in "To 
Harriet ('Oh Harriet, love like mine')" — that Eliza might 
leave the household. 

Shelley's later violent hatred of Eliza, then, may have 
had roots that went back almost to the beginning of the 
marriage. From at least the summer of 1812 on, there may 
have been considerable discord in the household. 

Although some of the phrasing is trite, the poem has a 
musical lilt that anticipates the later lyrics (for instance, 
some in Prometheus Unbound) and indicates 1812 rather 
than 1811 as the date of composition. So, too, does its plac- 
ing in the volume; it comes in what is apparently a run of 
1812 (Devon) poems. It seems to show more genuine and 
spontaneous feeling for Harriet than the more elaborate 
"To Harriet ('It is not blasphemy')." 



Page ^4. Mary to the Sea-Wind 

DowDEN in his copybook comment first suggested that this 
might be "one of the Oxford poems to Mary"; then, below 
this, he wrote, in darker ink and perhaps some time later: 
"or Lynmouth 1812." Of the two, the second suggestion is 
the more likely. The story told in the Oxford poems (of 
betrayal and suicide) does not agree either in situation or 
in mood with this poem; the Mary of the Oxford poems is 
not near the sea. The sea and the "sea-wind" suggest 
Devon. There is a Mary in "The Voyage," which was 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



written in Devon in August 1812. This Mary's husband 
is at sea, as is the lover of "Mary to the Sea-Wind." 



Page cf^. A retrospect of Times of Old 

This poem, strange though it may sound to modern ears, 
is part of a genre popular in Shelley's day as a result of 
the archaeological discoveries which followed European 
conquests in Asia and Africa. Shelley, as one might expect, 
is not satisfied with sentimental moralizing on past glories 
but gives the genre a political twist. 

Dowden, for some reason, made no general comment 
about the poem in his copybook, but he did in his biog- 
raphy of Shelley: 

Here also on the Devon coast was probably written "A 
Retrospect of Times of Old" — a rhymed piece, also un- 
published, having much in common with those earlier 
pages of "Queen Mab," which picture the fall of empires, 
and celebrate the oblivion that has overtaken the old 
rulers of men and lords of the earth. "^ 

Dowden's reasoning here is certainly sound. When we 
turn to the second canto of Queen Mab, in which Shelley 
begins his survey of the past ("The Past, the Present, and 
the Future are the grand and comprehensive topics of this 
Poem," he informed Hookham^), the general parallel with 
this "retrospect" is unmistakable even though the style is 
different and no notable specific parallels appear, for 
example: 

Behold, the Fairy cried. 
Palmyra's ruined palaces! . . . 

3 Dowden, Shelley, I, 285. 

*To Hookham, August 18, [1812], Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 19. 

(226) 



COMMENTARIES 

Monarchs and conquerors there 
Proud o'er prostrate millions trod — 
The earthquakes of the human race; 
Like them, forgotten when the ruin 

That marks their shock is past.^ 

On August 18, 1812, Shelley informed Hookham that 
he did not begin Queen Mab until he arrived in England 
— on or about June 22. As he also informed him that he 
was then on "the Present," he must have completed "the 
Past." He left Devon at the end of August. 

There is one other piece of evidence which indicates 
that "A retrospect of Times of Old" was composed dur- 
ing these weeks on the "Devon coast." In his letter of 
August 18 Shelley thanks Hookham for having sent him 
Peacock's The Genius of the Thames, Palmyra and other 
Poems. "The conclusion of 'Palmyra,' " he felt, was "the 
finest piece of poetry I ever read." In the later stanzas of 
Palmyra we find such passages as: 

These arches, dim in parting day. 

These dust-defiled entablatures. 
These shafts, whose prostrate pride around 

The desert-weed entwines its wreath, 
These capitals that strew the ground, 

Their shattered colonnades beneath, 
These pillars, white in lengthening files. 
Grey tombs, and broken peristyles, 
May yet, through many an age, retain 
The pomp of Thedmor's wasted reign: 
But Time still shakes, with giant-tread. 
The marble city of the dead. 
That crushed at last, a shapeless heap, 
Beneath the drifted sands shall sleep. 

^ Queen Mab, II, 109-10, 121-5. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

In Queen Mab, Shelley writes of the ruins of Palmyra. 
One source of information about Palmyra available both 
to him and to Peacock was Count Volney's Les Ruines 
(1791), the influence of which on Queen Mab was estab- 
lished as long ago as 1 8g6 by the German scholar L. Kell- 
ner.^ Its influence on the "retrospect" also seems probable; 
for example: 

Here, said I to myself, an opulent city once flourished; 
this was the seat of a powerful empire. Yes, these places, 
now so desert, a living multitude formerly animated, and 
an active crowd went here and there about streets which 
at present are so solitary. Within these walls, where a 
mournful silence reigns, the noise of the arts and the 
shouts of joy and festivity continually resounded. These 
heaps of marble formed regular palaces; these prostrate 
pillars were the majestic ornaments of temples; these 
crumbling galleries present the outlines of public 
squares.'^ 

Although Peacock and Volney concern themselves with 
the ruins of Palmyra (in Syria), Shelley does not appear to 
be discussing any particular ruined city or its history; 
rather, he seems to be giving a composite picture. True, 
he mentions Persepolis in his first footnote, but the 
"Simoon" of line 25 (the same as the "tainted blast" of 
line 8) is a supposedly harmful desert wind, whereas Per- 
sepolis is on the Iranian high plateau. Furthermore, as Shel- 
ley indicates in his footnote, the story of the king who 
murders his brother and commits suicide is not based on 
an actual historical episode (although it seems generally 
similar to the story of Cambyses). His objective is to show 

*L. Kellner, "Shelley's Queen Mab and Volney's Les Ruines," Englische 
Studien, XXII (1896), 9-40. 

^C. F. Volney, The Ruins, or A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires 
(London, 1921), p. 3. 

(228) 



COMMENTARIES 

modern "conquerors" the vanity of their conquests by 
revealing the downfall of past kings and empires. He 
wishes also to emphasize the greater corruption of the 
modern representatives of the species (who have no "com- 
punction"). What would have immediately caught his 
readers' attention (and perhaps the Attorney General's) 
if the poem had been published is the inclusion of the 
British national heroes "Wellington and Nelson" among 
the "legal murderers" and "scourges of mankind." Well- 
ington's Spanish campaign was assailed in The Devil's 
Walk. Nelson he abhorred particularly for his bombard- 
ment of Copenhagen. (See above, page 127.) 



Page p8. The Voyage 

As THIS POEM is not easy to follow, it might be well to 
outline the narrative. The poem opens with a small ship 
(line 18), which has come through a storm, moving along 
a rocky shore toward a port. The ship is carrying four 
passengers: two old sailors, who have gone through many 
hardships together (lines 70-111); a "landsman" (line 114) 
of unnamed occupation, but apparently connected with 
business; and a young idealist (line 149). The first 220 
lines of the poem deal with the voyage and the life stories 
of these passengers. At line 221, what is, in effect, a second 
poem begins; it centers on the seizure of a sailor by the 
press gang in the port after the vessel has docked. 

The first 69 lines of the poem are introductory. They 
refer back to the storm (which, we later learn — line 
219 — was "a night of horror") and discuss the thoughts 
of the passengers in general as they sail along the shore 
(lines 18-21): 

(229) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

That little vessel's company 
Beheld the sight of loveliness — 
The dark grey rocks that towered 
Above the slumbering sea. 

The "young and happy spirits" (line 40) who "Along the 
world are voyaging" does not refer to the ship's passengers 
but is a general reference to people on the voyage of life 
(as in Alastor). The life stories of the four passengers 
begin at line 70: 

Two honest souls were they 

And oft had braved in fellowship the storm. 

That the "two honest souls" were sailors appears both 
from the nature of their adventures together and from 
Shelley's note (to line 109) on the moral superiority of 
"old sailors" from small ships to navy men. "The storm" 
is not the storm of the night before, nor is the "fragile 
bark" (line 81) the ship on which the passengers are sail- 
ing; both refer to an earlier incident in the lives of the two 
sailors. 

The "landsman" (line 114) is a man who once had some 
idealism, or at least human, selfless feeling, but who mar- 
ried for money and became corrupted (lines 133-7): 

He bound himself to an unhappy woman; 
Not of those pure and heavenly links that Love 

'Twines round a feeling to Freedom dear. 
But of vile gold, cank'ring the breast it binds. 
Corroding and inflaming every thought. 

The young idealist (line 149), gazing out at the bright 
sea, falls asleep and has a dream (lines 162-213). He 
dreams that he and his beloved (line 198) and a "Sister" 
(line 210) are in a boat which is piloted by the evil lands- 
man to a barren island (line 167). In the dream he is ill 
and the landsman piles a large rock upon his "feeble 

(230) 



COMMENTARIES 

breast" (line 178). But like the Wandering Jew he does 
not die. He faints. When he regains consciousness — all 
still within the dream — his beloved, who is also enfeebled, 
is bending over him (line 198). Beside them (line 210) is 
the body of the "Sister" (whether his or hers is not stated), 
stabbed by the evil landsman (lines 186-8). The young 
idealist awakes and sees that the ship is coming into port 
(line 215). 

The port is described as a "populous town" with "two 
dark rocks" on either side of the harbor; and the second 
part of the poem opens. On the quayside is the press gang. 
A sailor "absent many years" (line 237) is hurrying to 
join his wife, Mary, and his children. As he reaches his 
door they seize him to force him into service in the army 
or navy (lines 248-61). A "sleek and pampered town's 
man" (line 263) standing by tells him that his wife and all 
his children but one are dead; that one is now a "parish 
apprentice." The poem ends with 31 lines attacking 
"Politicians," rich landlords,^ and others responsible for 
such injustices. 

This second part, one might suspect, was originally a 
separate poem. It is in a different verse form, and the con- 
tent, after a rather tacked-on introduction, has no rela- 
tionship to the first part. Moreover, the boat puts into 
port in the morning (lines 215-20), but when the press 
gang seizes the sailor, apparently but shortly afterward, it is 
night (lines 243-4). 

Shelley does not specify a definite locale. He seems, in 
fact, to be attempting, in the first part, to create a dreamlike 
atmosphere, which might have been dispelled by realistic 
detail. It seems clear, however, that some of his experiences 
in the preceding months entered into the poem. 

s See also Oueen Mab, III, 106-17. Lines 290-98 may contain some echo 
of the story of Jesus and the rich young man. {Matthew, XIX, 16-24.) 

(231 ) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

On their voyage to Dublin from Whitehaven (in Feb- 
ruary), Shelley informed Godwin: "We were driven by a 
storm completely to the North of Ireland, in our passage 
from the Isle of Man. Harriet (my wife) and Eliza (my 
sister-in-law) were very much fatigued, after twenty-eight 
hours' tossing in a galliot during a violent gale."^ 

On the return trip, Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza left 
Dublin for Holyhead on April 4. Owing to adverse winds 
— Harriet informed Catherine Nugent — a voyage which 
should have taken twelve hours took thirty-six: "We did 
not arrive at Holyhead till near 2 o'clock on Monday 
morning. Then we had above a mile to walk over rock 
and stone in a pouring rain before we could get to the 
inn. The night was dark and stormy; but the sailors had 
lanterns, or else I think it would have been better to have 
remained on board. As soon as we could get supper we 
did. We did not eat anything for 36 hours, all the time we 
were on board, and immediately began upon meat; you 
will think this very extraordinary, but Percy and my sister 
suffered so much by the voyage, and we were so weakened 
by the vegetable system, that had they still continued it 
would have been seeking a premature grave. "^ From 
Holyhead they went to Barmouth, and then — to take up 
the story with Shelley: "We came from Barmouth to 
Aberystwyth, thirty miles, in an open boat."^ 

Much of this sounds like raw material for the poem. 
The picture of the young idealist, with a wife, and sister 
(or sister-in-law), on a ship following a stormy voyage per- 
haps is telescoped from the stormy night crossing from 
Dublin to Holyhead and the following trip in the small 



9 To Godwin, February 24, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 279. 
See also to Elizabeth Hitchener, February 13, 1812, ibid., p. 269. 

1 April 16, [1812], ibid., p. 310. 

2 To Elizabeth Hitchener, PApril 16, 1812, ibid., p. 307. 



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COMMENTARIES 

ship down the coast (the ship in "The Voyage" appears to 
be small). The harbor into which the ship enters is gen- 
erally similar to that at Aberystwyth, which has mountains 
towering behind it. And some of it may have come from 
the more severe storm in February — which is probably 
also the source for the vivid description of the storm en- 
dured by the two old sailors (lines 74-81). 

Shelley had, as we saw in "a Tale of Society as it is," 
long deprecated the activities of the press gang. In Dublin 
he had been interested in the case of one Redfern, who 
had been impressed into the British Army in Portugal. 

An Irishman has been torn from his wife and family in 
Lisbon, because he was an expatriat[e], and compelled to 
serve as a common soldier in the Portuguese Army, by 
that monster of antipatriotic inhumanity Beresford, the 
idol of the belligerents. You will soon see a copy of his 
letter, and soon hear of my or Sir F. Burdett's exertions in 
his favor. He shall be free. This nation shall awaken. It 
is attended with circumstances singularly characteristic of 
cowardice and tyranny. My blood boils to madness to 
think of it.3 

A letter from Redfern had been printed (perhaps by 
Shelley himself), and Shelley took copies to England for 
distribution. He apparently also attempted to get Sir 
Francis Burdett, the Reform leader, to take up the case 
in Parliament. 

There seems little doubt that Shelley's experiences in 
this case wove their way into his treatment of the sailor 
and the press gang. In fact, the reference (lines 230-3) to 
the king in his "dotage" who controls the press gang from 
his "distant land" may have been suggested by the arrest 
of Redfern by the subjects of George III in Portugal. 

Shelley dated the poem August 1812. It was in that 

®To Elizabeth Kitchener, March 10, 1812, ibid., p. 290. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

month also that he sent Queen Mah to Hookham.* The 
similarity is most marked, both in style and in content, 
between "The Voyage" and Qiieen Mab: in style, the 
same mixture of Southeyan unrhymed lyrical measure and 
regular blank verse; in content, the attack on the press 
gang and political corruption. 

The reference to Necessity in the note to line 109 is the 
first in Shelley's works to a doctrine that was to become 
central to much of his greatest poetry, including Prome- 
theus Unbound and The Triumph of Life; his definition 
of it here is the most succinct he ever made: 

the soul of Nature . . . 
Blind, changeless, and eternal in her paths. 

In a Note to Queen Mab he elaborates: 

He who asserts the doctrine of Necessity means that, 
contemplating the events which compose the moral and 
material universe, he beholds only an immense and un- 
interrupted chain of causes and effects, no one of which 
could occupy any other place than it does occupy, or act 
in any other place than it does act. 

The attack in the same note on the "habits of coercion 
and subjection imbued" into the sailors on the "King's 
ships" is a reflection of a campaign at the time against 
brutality in the navy. Part of the regeneration of society 
envisaged in Prometheus Unbound was the abolition of 
this brutality; ships are seen as 

Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, 
And desolation, and the mingled voice 
Of slavery and command. 

The theory of the complementary evils of "coercion 
and subjection," "slavery and command," arc embodied 
also in the lines (129-32): 

*To Thomas Hookham, August 18, [1812], ibid., IX, 19. 

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COMMENTARIES 

Yes! in the dawn of life, 
When guileless confidence and unthinking love 

Dilate all hearts but those 
Which servitude or power has cased in steel. 

Shelley's argument is that the natural channels of love are 
dammed up among the upper classes by power, among the 
lower by oppression. 



Page 1 08. A Dialogue 

This poem was among five manuscripts that Shelley ap- 
parently gave in a group to Hogg at Oxford.^ Four were 
kept by Hogg and retained after his death by the Hogg 
family. They are now in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.^ 
The fifth, that of "A Dialogue," was given or sold by Hogg 
to the book and manuscript collector Dawson Turner in 
1834. In a letter accompanying the manuscript Hogg wrote: 
"I now send you a poem, or rather a rough draft of part 
of a poem, by his hand, and from his head and heart. The 
papers amongst which it was found, and other circum- 
stances, lead me to believe that it was written in 1810, when 
the young poet was but seventeen or eighteen years old. It 
is doubtless unpublished, and of a more early date than 
any of his published poems; on all accounts, therefore, it 
is most interesting."^ In the sales catalogue of Dawson 
Turner's library in 1859 we find the following notation: 
"Shelley, P.B., 2 A.L.s. and 8 pages 410. of Aut. Poems, etc. 
1810-1815." As Turner is unlikely to have had any other 

^ See Commentary to "To Death," above, p. 205. 
^Shelley and his Circle, SC 114, 120, 123, 124. 
■^ Hogg, Shelley, I, 123. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

manuscript by Shelley as early as one of 1810, we can take 
it that this item included Hogg's manuscript of "A 
Dialogue." Who bought it or where it is at present does 
not appear to be known. 

Shelley did not give Hogg his sole copy, for he obviously 
had one when he was compiling this volume of poems. And 
that the manuscript Shelley kept contained a similar text, 
although not exactly the same as that given to Hogg, is 
shown by Shelley's footnote, in which he tells us that when 
the poem was originally written the first part of line 25 
read "What waits for the good?" Hogg, in his life of Shelley, 
prints: "Nought ^vaits for the good." "What" in our manu- 
script is quite clear. It is possible, of course, that Hogg 
misread "Nought" for "What" in his manuscript, but this 
seems unlikely, for Hogg was quite skilled in reading 
Shelley's hand. 

By "the papers among which it was found," Hogg doubt- 
less means the other four manuscripts given to him by 
Shelley at the same time. Shelley, it would seem, gave them 
to him in January 1811 when they returned to Oxford after 
the Christmas holidays.^ Hogg apparently assumed that all 
the manuscripts were written in 1810. But of the two dates 
given for "A Dialogue" — 1809 by Shelley, 1810 by Hogg 
■ — Shelley's is preferable. In style the poem is rather like 
"The Irishman's Song" in Original Poetry, which is dated 
October 1809, and this style, in turn, reflects the influence 
of Scott ("Young Lochinvar") and Campbell ("Lochiel's 
Warning") on Shelley's earliest poetry. If 1809 is correct, 
the poem can hardly have been written before the latter 
months of the year, for it was apparently in these months 
that Shelley's anti-war and anti-monarchical feelings first 

^Shelley and his Circle, II, 629-30, 657-9, 665-6. 

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COMMENTARIES 

began to take form,^ such sentiments as those expressed in 
line 4: 

And slaves cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod. 

We might note, too, that "scorpions of perfidy" and 
"Bigotry's bloodhounds" sound like references to those 
members of the Shelley and Grove families who tried to 
break up Shelley's engagement to Harriet Grove, a first at- 
tempt at which apparently took place in the fall of 1809. 

Some of the changes Shelley made in the poem are re- 
vealing. For instance, in the version given to Hogg lines 
2-3 read: "I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,/ 
Where Innocence sleeps 'neath the peace-giving sod." In 
revising the poem for the Notebook, Shelley changes these 
lines to: "I have sped with Love's wings from the battle- 
field grave,/Where Ambition is hushed neath the peace- 
giving sod." He thus changes a personal, philosophical ref- 
erence to a social, anti-war reference. 

The lines that Shelley quotes in his footnote are from his 
own Queen Mah, III, 80-3, where they appear as follows: 

earth in itself 
Contains at once the evil and the cure; 
And all-sufficing nature can chastise 
Those who transgress her law. 

As "A Dialogue" was written in either 1809 or 1810 
and Qiieen Mab was not begun until the summer of 1812, 
this footnote must have been written when Shelley was 
"preparing" his poems for Hookham. 



9 See Commentaries to "I will kneel at thine altar" and "Henr)' and 
Louisa," below, pp. 250, 260. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page no. How eloquent are eyes! 

As THE fortunes of this poem and the next ("Hopes that 
bud in youthful breasts") have been joined by Shelley's 
editors, it seems best to treat the two together. 

Shelley's works contain a poem called "Eyes: A Frag- 
ment" and another called "Love's Rose." "Eyes: A 
Fragment" consists of the first thirteen lines of "How 
eloquent are eyes!" These thirteen lines were first published 
by W. M. Rossetti (in his edition of Shelley's poems in 
1870) from a copy made by Richard Garnett of a manu- 
script in the possession of Shelley's son, Sir Percy Florence 
Shelley.i 

The source for "Love's Rose" is a letter from Shelley 
to Hogg of June 18-19, 1811. Shelley gives the first two 
stanzas, then places four large X's below them, and then 
gives the third. In editing this letter for Shelley and his 
Circle, I commented that, although Shelley's editors have 
assumed that all three stanzas comprise one poem, it did 
not seem clear that the final stanza belonged with the other 
two. Now, with the full text of both poems before us for 
the first time, the mystery can be solved. The stanza which 
has been represented as the third stanza of "Love's Rose" is 
in reality the final stanza of "How eloquent are eyes!" 
(which was arbitrarily given the title "Eyes: A Fragment" 
by Rossetti). 

Shelley, in including these lines (and some others) in his 
letter to Hogg, introduces them with the coment: "I trans- 
cribe for you a strange melange of maddened stuff which I 
wrote by the midnight moon last night."- When editing 

1 Shelley, Rossetti ed., 1870, II, 601; see also above, pp. 200, 218. 

2 June 18-19, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 810. 

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COMMENTARIES 

this letter I felt that this claim should perhaps not be 
taken literally; and my skepticism is now strengthened. 
Some of the lines in the letter may have been written "by 
the midnight moon last night," but it is unlikely that any 
lines of either "How eloquent are eyes!" or "Hopes that 
bud in youthful breasts" were written then, for in the 
Notebook both are dated 1810. 

Apparently, when Shelley wrote to Hogg he had some 
manuscripts of earlier poems beside him and included 
snatches from these poems in the letter to give an impres- 
sion of spontaneous creativity. Such a procedure is perhaps 
indicated by a variant reading in line 5 of "Hopes that bud 
in youthful breasts." Hogg, when publishing the letter that 
contained the poems, printed "honours" for "blossoms." 
It might be assumed that this was a misreading by Hogg. 
But the manuscript that Hogg used (now in The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library) shows "honours" quite clearly. This 
is a puzzling reading. "Honours" appears to make no sense. 
However, if Shelley was copying the poem from a manu- 
script as he hastily and excitedly composed his letter, he 
could have made such an error; but when copying the 
poems into the Notebook, a more methodical task, he 
would be more likely to transcribe correctly. Looking at 
the words in print or in a neat script it might seem im- 
possible to read "blossoms" as "honours." But in Shelley's 
script the two are not so far apart as one might imagine. 
In the manuscript of the letter, "nours" is rather similar 
in appearance to "ossoms." If the writing was messy and 
the "1" of "bl" very short (as it sometimes was in Shelley's 
script) "bl" could be misread for "h." In the Pforzheimer 
manuscript of the letter, however, the "h" is clear; it occurs 
twice, and both times is followed by the "bl" of "blow," 
which provides a basis for comparison. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Lines 16-20 are obscure. Apparently Shelley is again 
contrasting time with eternity and saying, in effect, that 
"our love will be fully realized in eternity." 



Page 112. Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 

See Commentary to the preceding poem, "How eloquent 
are eyes!" 



Page 11^. To the Moonbeam 

This poem, like the two preceding ones, was included in 
a letter to Hogg in 1811 (this one on May 17) — with the title 
"To the Moonbeam." At this time the letters to Hogg were 
sprinkled with tantalizing romantic hints about Harriet 
and Eliza Westbrook, and Shelley seems to be implying that 
the poem was somehow connected with them, but it, too, 
was an earlier poem. In fact, almost two years earlier. 

Shelley himself simply used the date "September 23, 
1809" as the title. The date and the romantic content 
indicate that the poem concerns Harriet Grove; the gloomy 
note — which we find in other 1809 poems — shows that the 
course of love was not running smooth; the use of the date 
alone as a title must have significance. Shelley also specifi- 
cally dated another poem on Harriet Grove, which seems to 
have reference to a particular event.^ 

That there was a break in the romance in the fall of 
1809 was suggested by Newman White: "In September of 
1809, however, the correspondence between Bysshe and 
Harriet practically ceased. For fifteen months Harriet re- 
corded only one letter from Shelley and two letters to him. 
It would look as though someone had decided already that 

^See Commentary to "To St Irvyne," below, p. 305. 

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COMMENTARIES 

it would be as well not to allow matters to proceed too 
far."^ Harriet's diary, with its brief entries, does not give 
indication of a crisis on September 23, but she records 
receiving "a most affec* letter" from Shelley's sister 
Elizabeth on September 19 and another on September 27, 
both of which she answered immediately.^ 

The major crisis, which broke up the romance, came a 
year later. The reason for it, Charles Grove stated, lay in 
Shelley's anti-religious views.^ Charles, we might note, 
had been away in the navy in the fall of 1809 and either 
knew of no difficulties in that year or did not consider them 
important. But the reason he gives for the break in 1810 
could have been operative also in 1809. Both Zastrozzi and 
"Henry and Louisa" show that Shelley's anti-religious 
views had developed in 1809; and Shelley was hardly one 
not to discuss them. 

As a poem, "To the Moonbeam" has no more merit than 
Shelley's other juvenile efforts. We might note, however, 
the unusual musical effect that he obtains with the skipping 
short lines followed by the long leaping rhythm of the 
last line. This verse form anticipates that of some of 
the Choruses of Prometheus Unbound — for instance, on 
the colonization of the planets: 

We'll pass the eyes 

Of the starry skies 
Into the hoar deep to colonize: 

Death, Chaos, and Night, 

From the sound of our flight, 
Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might. 

4 White, Shelley, I, 63. 

^Shelley and his Circle, II, 530, 531. Both entries have crossed-out, il- 
legible words following the notation of receiving the letters. Crossed-out 
words in Harriet's journal — as we can tell from the legible ones — usually 
have reference to Shelley. 

^ See Commentary to "Death-spuming rocks!," above, p. 211. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Page 11^. Poems to Mary 

As Shelley tells us in his "Advertisement," these four 
poems on "Mary" are but a "few" "selected from many." 
At least one other has survived; it was included in a letter 
to Elizabeth Kitchener on November 23, 1811, from 
Keswick: 

To Mary 
Who died in this opinion 

Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow 

Struggling in thine haggard eye: 
Firmness dare to borrow 

From the wreck of destiny; 
For the ray morn's bloom revealing 

Can never boast so bright an hue 
As that which mocks concealing, 

And sheds its loveliest light on you. 

Yet is the tie departed 

Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss? 
Has it left thee broken-hearted 

In a world so cold as this? 
Yet, though, fainting fair one, 

Sorrow's self thy cup has given. 
Dream thou'lt meet thy dear one. 

Never more to part, in Heaven. 

Existence w[oul]d I barter 

For a dream so dear as thine, 
And smile to die a martyr 

On affection's bloodless shrine. 
Nor would I change for pleasure 

That withered hand and ashy cheek, 
If my heart enshrined a treasure 

[Such as] forces thine to break. 



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COMMENTARIES 

Shelley introduces the poem as follows: "I transcribe a 
little Poem I found this morning. It was written some time 
ago; but, as it appears to shew what I then thought of 
eternal life, I send it."^ 

That this poem is from the same "Mary" group as those 
in the Notebook is indicated by the similarity of theme 
and the fact that it was "written some time ago." (They 
are dated "November 1810.") Apparently it would have 
come before "Mary III," which tells us that Mary is dead, 
for Mary in this poem, although in a bad way (with "hag- 
gard eye" and "ashy cheek"), is still alive. The "opinion" 
in which Mary died is a belief in immortality, a theme 
also in the Notebook poems. 

Who Mary was, we do not know; and almost nothing is 
known of her "story" beyond what Shelley tells us in these 
poems. We can, however, fill in a part of the background. 

The "friend" who told Shelley the story can be identified 
as Thomas Jefferson Hogg, for Leonora, referred to in the 
"Advertisement," was a novel (now apparently lost) 
written by Hogg. In 1811 Shelley wrote several letters to 
Hogg urging him to publish Leonora; and in one of them 
he linked Leonora and Mary: "Pray publish Leonora, 
demand 100 £ for it from Robinson, he will give it in the 
event. It is divine, is delightful not that I like y"" heroine, 
but the poor Mary is a character worthy of Heaven. I 
adore it."^ 

From Shelley's "Advertisement" one might gather that 
Leonora was primarily the story of Mary, but the letter 
indicates that Mary was a subsidiary character; Leonora 
was the heroine. In fact, the novel does not at all appear to 
have been the kind of sentimental tale that the "Mary" 
poems relate; rather it was a sophisticated, anti-religious 

7 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 198-9. 

8 January 3, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 684. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

novel: "... the printers refused to proceed with it, in con- 
sequence of discovering that he had interwoven his free 
notions throughout the work, and at the same time strongly 
endeavoured to dissuade him from its publication al- 
together."^ 

Just how Mary and her story fitted into such a work is 
not clear. Mary was obviously very religious; perhaps her 
misfortunes were somehow linked to her beliefs. 

In addition to the poems we have only one comment in 
Shelley's letters that adds anything to the "story": "I think 
were I compelled to associate with Shakespeare's Caliban 
with any wretch, with the exception of Lord Courtney, my 
father, B^ Warburton or the vile female who destroyed 
Mary that I should find something to admire."^ What part 
the "vile female" played in the Mary story is not clear. To 
judge from the poems and their notes, Mary seems to have 
been deserted by a lover and then committed suicide. Per- 
haps the "vile female" enticed her lover away from her or 
spread gossip about her. But if so, the gossip must have 
been false, for we are assured that Mary was "taintless" 
and "spotless." 

Hogg must have told Shelley the story of Mary shortly 
after they first met, for the poems are dated "November 
1810" and Shelley and Hogg met in October when the fall 
term opened at Oxford. As the Advertisement tells us 
that Mary died "three months" before Shelley heard her 
story, her death must have occurred during the summer of 
1810. If, then, Hogg knew her, as Shelley implies in the 
Advertisement (page 115), she probably lived near his home 
town of Stockton-on-Tees (County Durham), where he had 
spent the summer. Even if Hogg did know her, however, 

^John Slatter, quoted in White, Shelley, I, 95. 

iTo T. J. Hogg, May 8, 1811, Shelley and his Circle, II, 770; on the 
"wretches," see ibid., p. 774. 

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COMMENTARIES 

the Story of his sitting up with her on a "summer night" 
enfolded in her "tremulous bosom" with two glasses of 
poison ready on the table sounds more like Monk Lewis 
than life. On the other hand, it may be that Mary did 
commit suicide, for Shelley — eighteen at the time — was 
deeply moved by her story: an "entrancement" of "three 
weeks" duration during which he wrote "many" poems on 
Mary. In view of Shelley's susceptibility in such matters 
(for instance, in regard to Emilia Viviani), this probably 
means that he was obsessed by Mary's story day and night. 

We do not know when he wrote the "Advertisement." 
Possibly it was written at the time of the compilation of the 
Notebook; but "Advertisements" were usually written only 
for complete volumes, not for parts of volumes; hence, 
Shelley sometime after hearing Mary's story, may have 
decided to publish a small volume of poems on the sub- 
ject, of which this "Advertisement," the Esdaile Notebook 
poems, and one other poem have survived. The implication 
in the lines quoted from St. Augustine — which may be 
translated: "I loved not yet, yet I loved to love ... I sought 
what I might love, in love with loving" — seems to be that 
Shelley's obsession with Mary's story was due to the fact 
that he then had no one to love and did not know what 
love was, but that these omissions have now been rectified. 
If so, the "Advertisement," was written after his marriage 
to Harriet. 

The quotation from St. Augustine was used later as a 
motto for Alastor, whose immature poet-hero was also "in 
love with love." The admission in the "Advertisement" 
that the state applied to Shelley himself at an earlier age 
provides further confirmation of the autobiographical 
nature of Alastor. 

Of the poems, the first, "To Mary I," is so poor,^ 
running at times into doggerel, that one wonders why 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Shelley chose it from the "many" available. The one in 
the letter to Elizabeth Hitchener is a better poem. The 
final poem, "To the Lover of Mary," is the best and the 
most interesting, for, if taken in conjunction with the 
poerii in the letter to Elizabeth Hitchener, it gives us 
further insight into Shelley's views on immortality in these 
years. In the poem in the letter Shelley tells us that Mary 
believes that she will meet her lover in Heaven. But Shelley 
himself, although envying such a belief, is skeptical: 

Existence w[ould] I barter 
For a dream so dear as thine. 

The second stanza of "To the Lover of Mary" depicts the 
same kind of vision. At first it seems as though this were 
the poet's own belief, but the following stanza (added 
later)2 redresses the balance. Such a vision would indeed 
be a "joy"; one would suffer a life of "woe" on earth in 
such a hope; but it is better to work (as Shelley thought of 
himself as doing) to make this world a better place: 

And living shew what towering Virtue dares 
To accomplish even in this vale of tears.^ 

2 As indicated in the Textual Notes. The quality of the verse suggests 
early composition; so perhaps the stanza was on a page of the manuscript 
which Shelley found after he had copied the earlier stanzas. 

3 The phrase "vale of tears" appeared later in the well-known lines in 
"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty": 

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, 
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? 
Strangely enough none of Shelley's editors seem to have attempted to 
trace the origin of this famous phrase. It originated in the Eighty-fourth 
Psalm and first appeared in the Bishops' Bible in 1568. It was repeated in 
the Douay Version of the Old Testament in 1609-1610 (there, due to a dif- 
ference in numbering, in the Eighty-third Psalm). The King James Version 
translates the phrase not as "vale of tears" but "valley of Baca" (weeping). 
It is recorded by the NED in the works of Sir Walter Raleigh, and we 
find it also in various seventeenth- and eighteenth-century poets. Keats 
commented in a letter to his brother and sister-in-law in April 1819: "The 
common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious 

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COMMENTARIES 

We might note that although Shelley does not express 
a belief in immortality in these poems he does not renounce 
it either. He is opposed to the theological concept of re- 
wards and punishments (as the note to "To Mary I" in- 
forms us), but he does not absolutely reject immortality as 
such. This is consistent with the mingling of hope and 
skepticism on the subject that we find in his letters to Hogg 
and Elizabeth Hitchener in these years.^ 

The comment in the footnote to "To Mary I" on "the 
Romances of Leadenhall S*""" refers to the Minerva Press 
on Leadenhall Street, which published trashy "novels of 
real life."^ 

The syntax in line 20 in "To the Lover of Mary" is 
complex. The meaning is: "The wounds caused by 
Misery's scorpion goad shall close." 



Page 116. To Mary I 

See Commentary to "Poems to Mary." 



Page 118. To Mary II 

See Commentary to "Poems to Mary." 



is 'vale of tears' from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitary 
[sic] interposition of God and taken to Heaven." {The Letters of John 
Keats, ed. Hyder Edward Rollins, Harvard University Press, 1958, II, 101-2.) 
Rollins, in his note, refers to "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" but obviously 
Keats had some religious source in mind. 

* See Commentary to "Written on a beautiful day in Spring," above, 
p. 188. 

5 See William A. Wheeler and Charles G. Wheeler, Familiar Allusions, 
A Handbook of Miscellaneous hiformation, Boston, 1882; and Dorothy 
Blakey, The Minerva Press, 1J90-1820, London, 1939. 



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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page iic}. To Mary III 

See Commentary to "Poems to Mary." 

Page 121. To the Lover of Mary 
See Commentary to "Poems to Mary." 



Page 12^. Dares the Lama 

When Shelley met Hogg at Oxford in the fall of 1810, he 
told him of his talented sister Elizabeth, whereupon Hogg 
fell in love with her (sight unseen). In their letters during 
the Christmas vacation in December and January, we hear 
much about Shelley's loss of Harriet Grove because of his 
anti-religious views and Hogg's "love" for Elizabeth. Later, 
after the expulsion from Oxford in March, Shelley became 
alarmed at Hogg's eagerness and began to emphasize 
Elizabeth's shortcomings, particularly her tendency to con- 
formity in religious and social matters. This poem, "Dares 
the Lama," was included in a letter of April 20, 1811,^ with 
the comment: "There it is — a mad effusion of this morn- 
ing!" 

We are faced once more, however, with a disagreement 
between the Notebook and a letter, for the poem is dated 
1810 in the Notebook. That 1810 is the correct date is 
indicated by the fact that the poem almost certainly refers 
to the break-up of Shelley's engagement to Harriet Grove, 
which occurred in the fall of that year and precipitated 
just such anti-clerical feelings as we find in the poem: 
^'Oh! I burn with impatience for the moment of xtianity's 
dissolution it has injured me; I swear on the altar of 

* Shelley, Complete Works, VHI, 78-9, where (p. 76) it is wrongly dated 
April 28. For dating, see Shelley and his Circle, II, 757. 

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COMMENTARIES 

perjured love to avenge myself on the hated cause of the 
effect which even now I can scarcely help deploring . . . 
On one subject I am cool, (religion) yet that coolness alone 
possesses me that I may with more certainty guide the 
spear to the breast of my adversary, with more certainty 
ensanguine it with the hearts blood of Xt's hated name.'"^ 
By April 1811 Shelley — to judge by his letters — does not 
seem excited enough about this issue to write poetry on it. 
Whether the poem was written in late 1810 or in April 
1811, however, the reference in the lines 

For in vain from the grasp of Religion I flee. 
The most tenderly loved of my soul 
Are slaves to its chilling control 

is to Harriet Grove and Elizabeth Shelley. If it was written 
in 1810, as it almost certainly was, the main reference is to 
Harriet Grove. But that Shelley intended Hogg to believe 
that he was thinking primarily of Elizabeth is indicated in 
the following paragraph from the letter of April 20, 1811: 

My sister does not come to town, nor will she ever, at 
least I can see no chance of it. I will not deceive myself; 
she is lost, lost to everything; Intolerance has tainted her 
— she talks cant and twaddle. I would not venture thus 
to prophesy without being most perfectly convinced in my 
own mind of the truth of what I say. It may not be ir- 
retrievable; but, yes, it is! A young female, who only once, 
only for a short time, asserted her claim to an unfettered 
use of reason, bred up with bigots, having before her eyes 
examples of the consequences of scepticism, or even of 
philosophy, which she must now see to lead directly to the 
former. A mother, who is mild and tolerant, yet narrow- 
minded; how, I ask, is she to be rescued from its influ- 
ence?^ 

''December 20, 1810, Abinger Manuscripts, Pforzheimer microfilm, reel 
VII. 

8 To Hogg, April 28, 1811, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 77. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

The indication, then, is that Shelley wrote the poem in 
1810 on himself and Harriet Grove (with incidental ref- 
erence to Elizabeth, who apparently agreed with some of 
Harriet's objections to Shelley's views) and then later 
included it in a letter to Hogg with the implication that 
it was primarily on Elizabeth's backsliding from enlighten- 
ment — which rendered her an unsuitable mate for Hogg. 

The tenor of the poem is mainly anti-clerical. The spirit 
"fiercer than tygers" of line 22 is religion. It is religion 
whose shadow has spread "the darkness of deepest dismay" 
over the battlefield (presumably by its visions of hell, which 
are "more frightful than death"). Religion is the poison 
in the waves of the fountain (of life?) which has corrupted 
those the poet loves and which has injured the poet himself. 

The poem, like others of the same period, is often 
melodramatic and juvenile, but it would be a mistake to 
allow this to obscure the fact that it was born of a deep 
shock and expresses a fiercely held conviction. Shelley at 
the time simply lacked the skill to depict intense emotion 
with controlled power. 

Page 12^. I loill kneel at thine altar 

When Shelley was "yet a boy," as he tells us in "Hymn to 
Intellectual Beauty," he had a spiritual experience one 
spring day which changed his life: 

I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed: 

I was not heard: I saw them not: 

When musing deeply on the lot 
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 

All vital things that wake to bring 

News of birds and blossoming, 

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; 
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in extacy! 

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COMMENTARIES 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow? 

The same experience is referred to in the autobiographi- 
cal Dedication to The Revolt of Islam, in which Shelley 
tells us that it occurred outdoors one May morning within 
sound of "school-room voices." And it is referred to again, 
as Newman I. White suggested, in Julian and Maddalo 
in a passage in which Shelley tells us that "when a boy" 
he dedicated his life to "justice and love."^ 

The present poem, "I will kneel at thine altar," has a 
similar theme. As in the Hymn, the poet rejects the 
"poisonous names" of orthodox religion, and his dedication, 
as in Julian and Maddalo, is to love. Love and intellectual 
beauty were closely associated in Shelley's thinking, and 
in his later poetry the personifications of both have much 
in common. Both were ideals for which one should strive 
and which the existing society tended to thwart. The 
dedication, in all these poems, is fundamentally to 
humanity. 

Both in "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" and in the 
Dedication to The Revolt of Islam Shelley refers to a par- 
ticular experience on a particular day. Is this poem, "I 
will kneel at thine altar," a contemporary account of the 
same experience, perhaps written only shortly after it? If 
so, the experience must have taken place in May, 1809, for 
the Dedication to The Revolt of Islam places it in May 
and this poem is dated 1809 by Shelley. In fact, Shelley 
seems to place a particular emphasis on the date. He gives 
"1809" as sole title and puts a design under it. 

It is difficult, however, to accept so early a date as May 
1809 for this experience. In January 1812 Shelley wrote to 
William Godwin: 

9 The Best of Shelley, ed. Newman I. White (New York, 1932), p. 473. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

It is now a period of more than two years since first I 
saw your inestimable book on "Political Justice"; it 
opened to my mind fresh and more extensive views; it 
materially influenced my character, and I rose from its 
perusal a wiser and a better man. I was no longer the 
votary of romance; till then I had existed in an ideal 
world — now I found that in this universe of ours was 
enough to excite the interest of the heart, enough to em- 
ploy the discussions of reason; I beheld, in short, that I 
had duties to perform. ^ 

These comments to Godwin, one would assume, refer 
to the same period as that in which the experience referred 
to in the Dedication occurred; and "more than two years" 
prior to January 1812 would indicate that he first read 
Political Justice not later than the fall of 1809. To this 
we must add another comment to Godwin a few months 
later in reference to Shelley's final period at Eton: 

My fondness for natural magic and ghosts abated, as my 
age increased. I read Locke, Hume, Reid, and whatever 
metaphysics came in my way, without, however, renounc- 
ing poetry, an attachment to which has characterized all 
my wanderings and changes. I did not truly think and 
feel, however, until I read "Political Justice," though my 
thoughts and feelings, after this period, have been more 
painful, anxious and vivid — more inclined to action and 
less to theory. Before I was a republican: Athens appeared 
to me the model of governments; but afterwards, Athens 
bore in mind the same relation to perfection that Great 
Britain did to Athens.^ 

Shelley, in other words, had radical tendencies before 
he read Godwin; he had read Hume's anti-religious phi- 
losophy (there is, in fact, anti-religious sentiment in his 
horror novel ZcLstrozzi, written earlier in the year); and he 
was a "republican," which means that he was opposed to 

1 January 10, 1812, Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 240. 

2 June 3, 1812, ibid., p. 331. 

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COMMENTARIES 

the monarchy and the House of Lords. Mixed with this, no 
doubt, was the Whig anti-war sentiment he had long been 
exposed to. But if Shelley did not really begin to "think 
and feel" about these things — that is, to become emotion- 
ally and intellectually involved in them — until he read 
Godwin, then "I will kneel at thine altar" must have been 
written after he read Political Justice. Furthermore, al- 
though some of the language — "tyranny's power," "Priest- 
craft" — is as much republican as it is Godwinian, the 
concept implied in "Opinion" (line 30) is specifically 
Godwinian. In Political Justice Godwin has many discus- 
sions on the pernicious effects of "Opinion,"^ by which he 
means the ideas implanted by a reactionary society in its 
own interests (a doctrine Shelley embodied in The Revolt 
of Islam. '^ 

It is probable, then, that the poem was written in the 
latter months of 1809, and that it does not deal with the 
experience referred to in "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" 
but was preliminary to it. 

Shelley's dating of this poem "1809" and its Godwinian 
echoes also indicate that Shelley first read Political Justice 
in 1809 and not in 1810. And this would have to be — on 
the basis of Shelley's comments to Godwin — late in 1809. 
This dating, as we shall see, is strengthened by the evidence 
of "Henry and Louisa," and it agrees with Hogg's state- 
ment that Shelley first read Political Justice in Dr. Lind's 
copy,^ for Shelley's association with Lind came during his 
Eton days. It would seem that Lind lent him the book in 
the fall term of his last year there (1809-1810).^ 

3 Godwin, Political Justice, I, xlvi (Index). 

* The Revolt of Islam, VIII, ix-x. See above, p. 217. 

5 Hogg, I, 313-14. 

^ There is, however, one piece of evidence which seems to indicate the 
spring of 1810 for the first reading of Political Justice. In a letter of Janu- 
ary 16, 1812, Shelley informed Godwin that his romances, Zastrozzi and 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Although the poem is influenced by Godwin, its central 
theme, love — love as the motive power for the young 
revolutionary, and love as the essential ingredient in the 
higher order of society which is to succeed the old — is not 
Godwinian. (Godwin placed the emphasis on Necessity, not 
on love.) It was, however, to become the central theme of 
much of Shelley's greatest poetry. The final lines 

But the Avenger arises, the throne 

Of selfishness totters, its groan 
Shakes the nations. — It falls, love seizes the sway; 
The sceptre it bears unresisted away. 

form a kind of crude epitome of the message of Prometheus 
Unbound. 

Shelley is not, that is to say, in this poem — or in any 
other — simply reflecting Godwin's doctrines. He had his 
own social philosophy into which he integrated those parts 
of Godwin's which he felt were relevant. In this early 
period, what apparently happened was that the reading of 
Political Justice pulled together his previous views on war, 
religion, and government and gave them new meaning. 

For the general sense of lines 16-18 we might compare 
the conclusion of A Defence of Poetry, for example: "But 
even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled 
to serve, the Power which is seated upon the throne of 
their own soul." 

St. Inryne, were written before he had read any of Godwin's works except 
St. Leon. Zastrozzi, we know, was being written in the spring of i8og and 
Shelley intended to complete it by July. We do not know when he began 
St. Inryne, but on April 1, 1810, he wrote to his friend Edward Fergus 
Graham of "my new Romance," which must be St. Inryne. It may be that 
most of St. Irvyne had been written by the late fall of 1809. or perhaps Shel- 
ley is stretching a point in his January 16 letter to flatter Godwin. What- 
ever the explanation, the main weight of evidence points to a reading of 
Political Justice in late 1809. 



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COMMENTARIES 

Page i2y. Fragment . . . bombardment of 

Copenhagen 

Shelley enclosed a version of this poem in a letter to Hogg 
on January 1 1, 1811.'^ Below the poem he placed a line of 
X's across the page and then wrote the following stanza: 

All are Bretheren, — the African bending 

To the stroke of the hard hearted Englishmans rod 
The courtier at Luxury's Palace attending 
The Senator trembling at Tyranny's nod 
Each nation w*^'^ kneels at the footstool of God 
All are Bretheen [sic]; then banish Distinction afar 
Let concord & Love heal the miseries of War. 

As this stanza is the same in form and meter as those 
preceding it, presumably it is a conclusion to the Copen- 
hagen poem. Following this final stanza Shelley writes: 
"These are Eliza's, she has written many more, & I will 
shew you at some future time the whole of the composition. 
I like it very much, if a Brother may be allowed to praise 
a sister." 

The implication seems to be that all the lines quoted are 
by Elizabeth, that they are part of one poem, and that the 
line of X's means that the middle stanzas have been omitted 
or have not yet been written. It is possible, of course, that 
Shelley meant that only the final stanza (quoted above) 
below the row of X's was by Elizabeth. It may also be that 
the second stanza of the poetry quoted in the letter was by 
Elizabeth, for neither it nor the final stanza appear in the 
Esdaile Notebook version. If Shelley and his sister wrote 
the poem together, each doing some stanzas, the collabora- 
tion is remarkable, for the stanzas are identical in style and 

^ Shelley and his Circle, II, 700-3. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

sentiment. It is more likely that the whole poem, in both 
versions, was by Shelley and that he was representing the 
letter version as Elizabeth's in order to stimulate Hogg's 
interest in her (as he did also with "Cold are the blasts").^ 
The only extant poems by Elizabeth are not at all in this 
radical vein but are personal narratives or lyrics. 

If, however, the second stanza and the final ("All are 
Bretheren") stanza in the letter version are Shelley's, why 
do they not appear in the Notebook? It may be that Shelley, 
when he came to compile the Notebook, thought them 
inferior, or, more probably, that they were not in the 
manuscript from which he was copying. That Shelley was 
aware that the poem was not complete is indicated both 
by the word "Fragment" in the title and the row of X's 
below it. There is, indeed, some indication that it was 
planned as a rather long poem, in, say. eight to ten stanzas. 
The final stanza in the Notebook version on the "lone 
female" seems somewhat tacked on. Perhaps it was origi- 
nally part of a series of examples on the horrors of the 
British bombardment (in 1801, by a fleet under Nelson's 
command). The "All are Bretheren" stanza of the letter 
version with its general moralistic tone sounds like a true 
final stanza. 

Shelley does not date the poem in the Notebook, as he 
usually does with earlier poems. It may be, then, that it 
was written but shortly before the letter of January 11, 
1811, in which it was included. 

We might note that the change in the Esdaile text in 
line 5 from "tinges" to "clots with" is apparently an ex- 
ample of a creative addition Shelley made as he copied. 



* See Commentary, below, p. 258. 

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COMMENTARIES 

Page 128. On an Icicle 

Shelley enclosed this poem (with two additional stanzas) 
in a letter to Hogg on January 6, 1811, with the comment: 
"You see the subject of the foregoing. I send because I 
think it may amuse you."^ This comment, as I noted in 
editing the letter/ implies that the poem deals with some 
"subject" discussed in previous letters to Hogg. The most 
likely of these subjects is Hogg's hopeless "love" for Eliza- 
beth Shelley. The poem, however, is here dated 1809, and 
was doubtless a product of the crisis in Shelley's romance 
with Harriet Grove in the fall of that year. (The anti-war 
and other radical sentiments in the poem also point to the 
latter part of the year.) So that, as with "Dares the Lama," 
Shelley in 1811 is sending Hogg an 1809 poem which grew 
out of his own romance, with the implication that it has 
just been written and refers to Hogg and Elizabeth.^ 

That Shelley was again using an early manuscript for 
the Notebook may be indicated by one textual matter. In 
the letter version "And" in line 13 is crossed out and 
"Say" substituted; in the Esdaile version "And" is re- 
tained. On the other hand, some of the Esdaile readings 
are superior to those in the letter. For instance, the rather 
fine line "And consigned the rich gift to the sister of 
Snow" is not in the letter. It would seem that Shelley re- 
vised an 1809 manuscript when preparing the poem for 



8 Shelley and his Circle, II, 690. 

^ Ibid., pp. 692-3. 

2 In editing the letter, I felt that Shelley intended Hogg to take the 
reference as being to the 1810-1811 break with Harriet Grove. This is 
possible, but it seems to me now that it was more likely part of Shelley's 
bedevilment of Hogg on his "love" for Elizabeth. In the letter version line 
19 reads: "Not for thee soft compassion celestials did know." Shelley's 
underlining of "thee" seems to imply a reference to Hogg (partly 
humorously, as his comment indicates: "I think it may amuse you"). 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



publication and did not have a copy of the 1811 letter 
version with him. 



Page I2C}. Cold are the blasts 

For this poem we are fortunate (or unfortunate) in pos- 
sessing two other texts. It was published first in Original 
Poetry by Victor (Shelley) and Cazire (his sister Elizabeth), 
and it is there dated "July, 1810." It was next published 
by Hogg in his biography of Shelley in 1858 along with 
fragments of two other poems. Below the poems Hogg 
commented: "Bysshe wrote down these verses for me at 
Oxford from memory. I was to have a complete and more 
correct copy of them some day. They were the composi- 
tion of his sister Elizabeth, and he valued them highly as 
well as their author."^ 

The manuscript which Shelley gave to Hogg is now in 
The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library.* An examination of it 
shows that Hogg was telling the truth, for the paper of 
the manuscript is the same as that of two letters written by 
Shelley from Oxford and different from the paper he was 
using at the family home, Field Place, during the same 
months. These verses were presumably written down for 
Hogg shortly after Shelley and he got together again at 
Oxford after the Christmas vacation in January 1811. 

But if Hogg is reliable obviously Shelley is not. He told 
Hogg that the poem was by Elizabeth,^ but its presence 
in the Esdaile Notebook shows that he intended to include 
it in his projected book of poems. As he would hardly 

3 Hogg, Shelley, I, 126. 

4 SC 114, Shelley and his Circle, II, 625-7. 

^ Hogg believed him, and so, too, alas, did the present editor; see Shelley 
and his Circle, II, 629-31. 



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COMMENTARIES 

have included it if he had not written it, we must assume 
that, as with the poem on the bombardment of Copen- 
hagen, it was Shelley's and not Elizabeth's. As with the 
Copenhagen poem, however, it is possible that some of it 
was by Elizabeth, or that the other verses he wrote down for 
Hogg with it were composed by her. It is more likely, 
however, that Shelley was simply pulling Hogg's leg on all 
occasions and that none of these poems or any part of them 
was by Elizabeth. 

The problem is further complicated by the fact that the 
poem is dated in the Notebook "1808," and in Original 
Poetry "July, 1810." Possibly the latter date refers to a 
revised version. We might note also that the second "8" in 
1 808 is considerably larger than the first, which might mean 
that Shelley hesitated on it or added it later. Perhaps he 
was not sure whether the poem was written late in 1808 or 
early in 1809. But if 1808 is correct, "Cold are the blasts" 
may be the earliest poem in the Notebook. (The only other 
contenders seem to be "Written in very early youth" and 
"Late was the night.") 

We run into similar complications in regard to text. 
When Shelley wrote down these verses for Hogg at Oxford, 
Hogg did not know — or gives no indication of knowing — 
that they had already been published in Original Poetry. 
That this Oxford transcription was based ultimately either 
on the Original Poetry text or on one very similar to it, 
however, is shown by the fact that both it and Hogg's omit 
one line in stanza three, which is seven and not the usual 
eight lines in length. On the other hand, Shelley was not 
simply copying from Original Poetry; for instance, in line 
14, Original Poetry reads: "He turned laughing aside";^ 
Hogg's manuscript: "He turned callous aside"; line 17 in 

* Shelley, Complete Works, I, 9. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Hogg's manuscript has the reading "dark summit," Original 
Poetry reads "wild height."^ These changes also support 
Hogg's statement that Shelley was writing the verses down 
"from memory" and not copying them. 

If we now examine the three texts, the Esdaile, the 
Original Poetry and Hogg's, we find that although the Orig- 
inal Poetry and Hogg's are close to each other, the Esdaile 
has many readings that they do not. Whole lines are 
changed: 8, 17, 21-3, and 38. The Esdaile manuscript also 
corrects the third stanza, previously only seven lines long, 
by bringing it to the eight-line form. In order to do so, 
however, Shelley changed two lines completely (lines 21-2) 
and added the rhyming line "Thou wrath of black Heaven, 
I blame not thy pouring." Apparently he was making re- 
visions when preparing the poem for new publication. 

Perhaps Shelley had a source for this tale of horror, but 
if so, no one has yet found it. When the poem was printed 
in Original Poetry the names, Henry and Louisa, were left 
blank, perhaps to suggest a contemporary story which 
might be recognized if names were given. Henry and 
Louisa are also the names of the hero and heroine of the 
next poem in the book, but there appears to be no con- 
nection between the two works. 



Page i^i. Henry and Louisa 

"Henry and Louisa" was Shelley's first attempt at a long 
poem, the predecessor of the now lost Poetical Essay on the 

■^ There is no evidence that Shelley had a copy of Original Poetry with 
him when he was compiling the Esdaile Notebook, and some indication 
that he did not in the fact that he does not include more of its poems in 
the Notebook, for instance, "The Irishman's Song," which would have 
fitted in rather well. 



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COMMENTARIES 

Existing State of Things and of Queen Mab. It shows that 
both Shelley's radical social philosophy and his technical 
skills had developed earlier than had been thought. He was 
himself, as his note informs us, aware of the juvenile char- 
acter of the poem — it was written when he was sixteen or 
seventeen — but he also seems to have felt that it had a 
special importance in the history of the development of 
his mind: "These defects I do not alter now, being unwill- 
ing to offer any outrage to the living portraiture of my own 
mind; bad as it may be pronounced." 

The opening lines of the poem indicate its main purpose: 

Where are the Heroes? sunk in death they lie. 
What toiled they for? titles and wealth and fame 

namely, an attack on war, specifically the Napoleonic Wars. 
This purpose is pursued by means of a story of two lovers, 
Henry and Louisa. In "Part the First" the scene is 
England; the two lovers are meeting in a country house 
(presumably Louisa's) for the last time before Henry, who 
is in the cavalry (a horse appears in stanza XVII), leaves 
for battle in Egypt. In "Part Second" the scene is Egypt. 
Henry has been mortally wounded; Louisa appears, search- 
ing for him (how she got to Egypt is not quite clear); she 
finds him lying on the sands beside a ruin near the sea; he 
is able to recognize her but is too badly injured to speak; 
when he dies she commits suicide. 

Such is the bare outline of the story. Let us fill in some 
of the particulars. 

The theme of the first stanza is the futility of war. All 
that comes of war is that the generals and kings have 
their "glory and their shame" "enshrined on brass"; the 
"misery" of mankind remains "unbettered." Stanza II is an 
attack on the soldier — a "vile worm" seeking only "vulgar 
glory." Stanzas III and IV and all but the last three lines 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

of V are missing,^ but as the attack on the soldier is still 
sustained in VI, presumably it continued in III, IV, and 
V. In VII we are told that, coarsened though he has been 
by war and army discipline, even the soldier — now spe- 
cifically one "warrior" — can respond momentarily to love 
(though his "mental eye" is occupied by visions of "the 
fight's red flood"). Louisa, too, is obsessed by chauvinistic 
concepts (VIII), and approves her lover's search for glory; 
his vision will live and dominate in her breast while he is 
away: "I will thine empire be" (an image later to appear 
in the opening lines of Epipsychidion). 

Henry is religious as well as chauvinistic. "Religion," he 
informs Louisa, "sanctifies the cause. I go/To execute its 
vengeance." The flag of the tyrant he is to fight flouts "with 
impious wing religion's grave." Like Mary of the Mary 
poems, he has an almost beatific belief in immortality (XII): 

Then thou and Heaven shall share this votive heart. 
When from pale dissolution's grasp I start. 

Louisa, however, has her doubts: 

But thou art dearer far to me than ail 
That fancy's visions feign, or tongue can speak. 

s Shelley has included the missing lines in his line count. The count 
before "Henry and Louisa" is 1985; after it, 2326; as there are 315 lines 
in the poera as it now stands, this total should be 2300. Shelley, then, 
added 26 for the missing lines. The spaces left blank, however (see 
Textual Notes), indicate only 24 missing lines (making, with the three lines 
included, three Spenserian stanzas). 

We might assume that Shelley had lost a page of the manuscript from 
which he was copying and left the spaces blank either in the hope of 
finding it or of composing new lines to fill the gap. This, however, brings 
up a problem. Did he include the missing lines in the manuscript that he 
sent to Hookham? If so, why did he not fill them in here? It is, of course, 
possible that he left them blank in the manuscript sent to Hookham 
and explained that he would fill them in later. If they were in the 
manuscript sent to Hookham, however, we can only assume that they 
were temporarily lost, then found again, and that Shelley forgot or 
neglected to copy them into the Notebook. 

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COMMENTARIES 

Although Louisa is no Cythna, there is perhaps in her the 
first element of Shelley's later "new woman" heroine. 

She bids Henry farewell (XIV), and overwhelmed by 
emotion, but still soldierly and silent, he rushes out of the 
house. There he appears to be in a garden where he and 
Louisa had often met. When he is alone it is apparent that 
beneath the stern exterior lies the suppressed sensitivity of 
a poet (not unlike Shelley himself^) as the "beloved" objects 
in the garden "rushed" with the beating of his heart 
"Impetuous" "on fainting memory." But there is a "deeper 
soul-pang" (XVI) even than memory. This, it appears from 
the next stanza, is the "still reproach" of nature for his war- 
making — the Rousseauistic theme of the contrast between 
nature and (evil) society. 

Suppressing more such thoughts, Henry mounts his 
horse, which apparently has been waiting outside, and 
rides away, forcing himself not to look back. As he goes, 
his horse's hoof (symbolically) crushes a flower, a sacrifice 
to "withering Glory" (XVIII). 

The last three stanzas of this first part are interjections 
by the poet himself, first on the flower thus sacrificed, then 
on religion, assailed as the source of "terror, pride, revenge 
and perfidy," an attack presaging those in The Wandering 
Jew and Queen Mah. In the final stanza, of only four 
lines, we learn that the poet himself has suffered deep 
"wrongs" at the hands of religion. This seems to be an 
extension of a charge in the previous stanza that "selfish 
Prejudice" was attempting to "drown in shouts" the 
"murmuring" of love, something which the poet swears 
he will thwart. Behind the anti-relig-ious sentiments of 



^Shelley had a special interest in the name Henry, perhaps even some 
sense of identification with it. Henry is the lover of lanthe in Queen Mab. 
Shelley also used the name in "Cold are the blasts," for an unfaithful 
lover, and in the sixth song in St. Irvyne, for a lover who is drowned. 



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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

the poem, then, there is a personal motive, and doubtless 
behind other aspects of it also. 

The second part opens with a rather colorful descrip- 
tion of a night battle in Egypt. The "Genius of the south" 
on Mount Atlas (in Morocco), looking at Africa's "deso- 
lated clime," weeps "at slavery's everlasting moans" (one 
of Shelley's few references to slavery, which ceased to be 
a live issue in English politics after the abolition of the 
slave trade in the British Empire in 1807). "Hostile flags" 
are "unfurled" in Egypt, the Genius's "most dear-beloved" 
nation. Among those fighting in Egypt are "Britannia's 
hired assassins" (IV). Alone among the troops is Louisa, 
just arrived from England, seeking Henry. Seeing the 
actual havoc of war, it no longer seems glamorous to her: 

War! thou source accurst. 
In whose red blood I see these sands immerst. 

She asks a soldier if he knows where Henry is. He does not, 
but hopes that "the fight/That casts on Britain's fame a 
brighter blaze" will spare him for her sake. As for himself, 
he must rush back to "the dear loved work" of war. The 
battle continues all night and into the dawn: "Scarce sunk 
the roar of war before the rising Sun." Louisa searches 
among the dead and wounded along the sands for her 
lover, the "sea-gales" carrying off the "shrieks of dying 
men." Then (VIII) under "a ruin's shade" she finds him 
in the agonies of death: 

his cheek 
On which remorseful pain is deep pourtrayed 
Glares, death-convulsed and ghastly. 

Louisa presses him to her; he recognizes her amid his pain, 
but is unable to speak. As they regard each other in 
silence, they hear the distant roar of battle: 

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COMMENTARIES 

Britannia's legions swiftly sweeping, 
Glory's ensanguined harvest reaping, 
Mowed down the field of men, 
And the silent ruins, crumbling nigh, 
With echoes low prolonged the cry 
Of mingled defeat and victory. 

Henry, dying, no longer has the bright confidence in im- 
mortality he had shown at the parting in England: 

Why does that breast with horror swell 
Which ought to triumph over fate? 

Shelley's purpose is now apparent, namely, to show by 
two contrasting scenes that the glitter of war and the 
promises of religion alike are false. But he has another 
purpose also. Louisa's anti-religious sentiments perhaps 
should have prepared us for the workings of nobility in 
her. Now they come to the surface. Looking at the silent 
body of her lover, she decides to join him in death: "Sacred 
to Love a deed is done I" This act, because it is unselfish, 
is an act of "Virtue," and virtue is "superior to Religion's 
tie." It casts a kind of holy (although Shelley does not use 
the word) glow over the graves of the lovers, a glow which 
promises disaster to the despot but freedom to others: 

The pomp-fed despot's sceptered hand 

Shall shake as if death were near, 
Whilst the lone captive in his train 
Feels comfort as he shakes his chain. 

A new order will arise from virtuous and unselfish acts. 

Such, then, is the story. Shelley may have had some 
source for it, but more probably he invented it. He must 
have known many young men who had views similar to 
those of Henry and went off to war (Harriet Grove had 
two brothers in the navy). Nor is it difficult to identify the 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

campaign about which he was writing. During Shelley's 
life up to this time Britain was involved in Egypt only 
twice. In 1801 an expedition under Sir Ralph Abercromby 
attacked Napoleon's forces and drove them out. In 1803 
the British were themselves forced out by the Turks, and 
Mohammed Ali began his rise to power. In 1807 the 
British again invaded Egypt, with a force of 5000, this 
time to attack the Turks. They took Alexandria but after 
two defeats at Rosetta, with heavy losses, were again forced 
to evacuate. 

Of the two campaigns there can be no doubt that Shelley 
had the second in mind. He was too young to remember 
that of 1801, but the campaign of 1807 could have made 
an impression on him, Henry's remarks on religion sanc- 
tifying "the cause" and the enemy's flag being "impious" 
also make more sense if the foes were the Turks and not 
the French. The battle along the shore amid ruins, then, 
must have been that at Rosetta (where the Rosetta stone 
had been found in 1799). 

Although the poem deals with the events of 1807, ac- 
cording to Shelley's notation it was composed in 1809. 
This notation is almost certainly correct. Whereas Shelley 
might not always remember when he composed a par- 
ticular short poem, he would hardly forget the date of 
one of this length, probably, indeed, the first such he had 
written. The last two stanzas of the first part, then, 
must refer to the attempts to break up Shelley's engage- 
ment to Harriet Grove in the fall of 1809. 

If one or both of these stanzas were inspired by the 1809 
crisis, something of the earlier course of the affair must be 
reflected in other lines. For instance, the "impassioned 
tenderness that burst / Cold prudery's bondage" (lines 30-1) 
may be a reference to a declaration of love on the part of 
Harriet; so too: 

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COMMENTARIES 

But thou art dearer far to me than all 
That fancy's visions feign, or tongue can speak. 

The scene in which Henry rushes out of the house in an 
emotional turmoil to find the world of nature unchanged 
(lines 103-7) gives the impression of a personal experience. 
That there were such declarations and scenes is indicated 
in Shelley's agonized poem on the break of the following 
year, "A Melody to a Scene of Former Times." 

It would seem, then, that the poem was written in the 
latter months of 1809. This dating is also supported by its 
general radical social content and by a specific parallel with 
"The Irishman's Song," which is dated (in Original Poetry) 
October 1809. The final stanza of "The Irishman's Song" 
begins with the line: "Ah! where are the heroes! tri- 
umphant in death." "Henry and Louisa" opens: "Where 
are the Heroes? sunk in death they lie." 

"Henry and Louisa," "The Irishman's Song," "A Dia- 
logue," and "I will kneel at thine altar" were apparently 
all written in the latter months of 1809, probably after 
Shelley's first reading in Political Justice. 

The ground, however, must have been prepared for the 
seeds of Political Justice. What prepared it? To judge from 
"Henry and Louisa," it was largely the war itself. The year 
1809 saw two campaigns which brought the war home to 
the British public with new force, for in both the British 
suffered heavy losses. On July 28 came the indecisive 
battle of Talavera, which forced the withdrawal of Well- 
ington's forces from Spain into Portugal. Then came the 
disastrous Walcheren expedition in August, as a result of 
which 20,000 British dead were left on the Netherlands 
beaches. Shelley was particularly indignant about the 
second of these disasters. In 1810 he actively defended an 
Irish journalist, Peter Finnerty, who had been imprisoned 
by the government for exposing British blundering at 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Walcheren, and even announced a book of poetry whose 
proceeds were to be used "to maintain in Prison Mr. Peter 
Finnerty, imprisoned for a libel. "^ 

In Political Justice Shelley would not only have found 
general radical principles but also specific anti-war argu- 
ments. If, indeed, he had gone no further than page 7 he 
would have come across the following: 

Among the various schemes that he has formed to destroy 
and plague his kind, war is the most terrible. Satiated 
with petty mischief and the retail of insulated crimes, he 
rises in this instance to a project that lays nations waste, 
and thins the population of the world. Man directs the 
murderous engine against the life of his brother; he in- 
vents with indefatigable care refinements in destruction; 
he proceeds in the midst of gaiety and pomp to the ex- 
ecution of his horrid purpose; whole ranks of sensitive 
beings, endowed with the most admirable faculties, are 
mowed down in an instant; they perish by inches in the 
midst of agony and neglect, lacerated with every variety 
of method that can give torture to the frame. 

If, interested by this, he had consulted Godwin's index 
at the front of the volume and followed the entries on war, 
he would have found this devastating attack on the soldier: 

The man that is merely a soldier, ceases to be, in the same 
sense as his neighbours, a citizen. ... It cannot be a 
matter of indifference, for the human mind to be system- 
atically familiarised to thoughts of murder and desola- 
tion.2 

The effect of such writing upon the mind of a young 
and sensitive intellectual already moving in a radical direc- 
tion can well be imagined. The characters of Henry and 
the soldier to whom Louisa speaks in Egypt seem to be 

1 Cameron, The Young Shelley, p. 50. It is not certain that the book was 
published. 

2 Godwin, Political Justice, II, 168-9. 

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COMMENTARIES 

fictional renderings of Godwin's comments on the soldier. 
In the notes to Queen Mab he quotes Godwin's similar 
comments in The Enquirer. 

It was, then, probably the twin impacts of the war and 
Godwin which drove Shelley toward that radical human- 
itarianism which became the ruling passion of his life. 

The "Genius of the south" (line 166) who "looked over 
Afric's desolated clime" from the top of Mount Atlas and 
"wept at slavery's everlasting moan" must have been in- 
spired by Robert Southey's "To the Genius of Africa" 
(1795), which begins: 

O thou, who from the mountain's height 
Rollest thy clouds with all their weight 
Of waters to old Nile's majestic tide; 
Or o'er the dark, sepulchral plain 
Recallest Carthage in her ancient pride, 
The mistress of the Main; 
Hear, Genius, hear thy children's cry! 

Southey then goes on to describe the horrors of the slave 
trade. 

The reference to "Memnon's plainings wild/That 
float upon the morning ray" may also have been derived 
from Southey, who writes in a note to Book Ten of 
Thalaha the Destroyer on the legendary statue of Memnon: 

My design is not absolutely to deny that he might com- 
pose some head or statue of man, like that of Memnon, 
from which proceeded a small sound and pleasant noise, 
when the rising sun came, by his heat, to rarify and force 
out, by certain small conduits, the air which, in the cold 
of the night, was condensed within it.^ 

3 "Shelley's favourite poet in 1809 was Southey. He had read Thalaba 
till he almost knew it by heart, and had drenched himself with its metrical 
beauty." (Medwin, Shelley, p. 44.) For some echoes of Thalaba in Shelley's 
works, see Hughes, The Nascent Mind of Shelley, pp. 88-9, and Shelley, 
Complete Works, I, 418 (on Queen Mab). 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



The (rather appalling) "big tear" of line 182 may come 
from Coleridge's sonnet to Bowles (second version), al- 
though we do not know that Shelley read Coleridge as early 
as 1809. 



Page 14^. A Translation of the Marsellois Hymn 

Stanza 4 of this translation of "The Marseillaise" ap- 
peared in a letter from Shelley to his musician friend 
Edward Fergus Graham.^ The letter occupies the first three 
pages of a double-sheet quarto; the stanza is on page 4, 
written in block letters. The letter is undated and bears 
neither postmark nor address, but its contents indicate that 
it was written just after a celebrated fete held by the 
Prince Regent on June 19, 1811, at Carlton House, 

This dating is borne out by the bibliographical evidence, 
which also indicates where the letter was written. Exami- 
nation of the manuscript in the Berg Collection of the 
New York Public Library shows the watermark to be 
"CHARLES WILMOTT/1809/." Wilmott paper was 
used by the Shelley family at Field Place. We find that 
Shelley used it at Field Place in 1810-1811 but not in 
London or Oxford.^ This letter to Graham, then, was 
almost certainly written at Field Place. As Graham lived 
in London, the letter cannot have been sent by private 
messenger, but must have been folded inside a sheet, now 
lost, bearing the address and postmarks. 

4 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 109-10. 

5 Shelley and his Circle, II, 658. As to the specific watermark "charles 
"WILMOTT/1809/," we find it on five letters by Shelley in The Carl H. 
Pforzheimer Library. They have the following dates: Jan. 17, 1811 (SC 
135); Jan. ?i9-?2i, 1811 (SC 136); May 17, 1811 (SC 160); May 21, 1811 
<SC 161); and June 4, 1811 (SC 164). 



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COMMENTARIES 

In a letter of June 20, 1811, from Field Place, Shelley 
commented to Elizabeth Hitchener on the Prince's fete: 

What think you of the babbling brooks and mossy banks 
at Carlton House — the all€e[s'\ verts, etc. It is said that 
this entertainment will cost £120,000; nor will it be the 
last bauble which the nation must buy to amuse this 
overgrown bantling of regency. How admirably this grow- 
ing spirit of ludicrous magnificence, tallies with the dis- 
gusting splendors of the stage of the Roman Empire 
which preceded its destruction! Yet here are a people 
advanced in intellectual improvement, wilfully rushing to 
a Revolution, the natural death of all great commercial 
empires, which must plunge them in the barbarism from 
which they are slowly arising.^ 

Evidently this vulgar display aroused Shelley's re- 
publican ardor, for he proposed to Graham that he supply 
the words and Graham the music to an "ode" on the Royal 
family.^ This ode was probably the poem which Charles 
Grove remembers Shelley throwing "into the carriages of 
persons going to Carlton House after the fete."^ 

Stanza 4, then, had been written by about June 20, 1811; 
and probably all the stanzas had been, for it is more likely 
that Shelley translated the whole poem at one time, rather 
than stanza 4 by itself. Perhaps he only included in the 
letter what he considered the most appropriately anti- 
monarchical stanza. Nor is it likely that Shelley just hap- 
pened to be working on a translation of "The Marseil- 
laise," when he was writing to Graham. More probably 



« Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 108-9. 

■^ The ode is referred to again in a letter to Graham of about July 13, 
1811. Ibid., IX, 123. (The editors date this letter July 15, but this date 
they have simply taken from the London postmark. As the letter was 
sent from Cwm Elan to London and mail between these two points took 
two to three days, the letter must have been written on July 12 or 13.) 

8 Charles Grove to Hellen Shelley, February 25, 1857, quoted in Hogg, 
Shelley, II, 158. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

it was something he had done previously and had by him 
as he wrote. 

As the letter was almost certainly written at Field Place, 
we are faced with a large span of time for the dating of the 
poem, for Shelley had his "younger poems" at Field Place. 
(In a letter to Hogg from Field Place on about June 18-19, 
1811, he enclosed "Hopes that bud in youthful breasts," 
which is dated 1810 in the Notebook; a letter to Hogg 
from Field Place on January 6, 1811, contained "On an 
Icicle," which is dated 1809.) The radical connotations of 
Shelley's translation (see below) point to at least the fall 
of i8og.^ "Pomp-fed Kings" of line 30 parallels "pomp- 
fed despots" in the final stanza of "Henry and Louisa" (late 
1809), When we note also that the poem comes in a 
sequence of early poems, we arrive at a probable date of 
late 1809 to 1810. 

In translating,^ Shelley preserves some of the energy of 
the original, but changes the character of the poem — mak- 
ing it adhere more closely to his personal interest, but 
weakening its impact. In contrast to the concrete rallying 
song of the French, Shelley's translation is, characteristi- 
cally, a generalized anti-tyranny poem. He changes the tone 
not only by his use of "you" for the original first-person 
plural, but also in particular instances. For example, in 
stanza 1, Shelley uses "slaves of power" rather than 
"soldiers" to translate "soldats." Again, in stanza 3, "nos 
guerriers," instead of "our warriors," becomes "the arm up- 
raised for liberty." Similarly, in stanza 4, the idea that the 
earth itself will replace "our young heroes" with others 
"all ready to fight against you" is inflated to: 



^ See, for instance, Commentaries to "I will kneel at thine altar" and 
"Henry and Louisa," above, pp. 250 and 260. 

1 For this examination of the translation, I am indebted to Miss Winifred 
Davis. 



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COMMENTARIES 

Our Mother Earth will give ye new 
The brilliant pathway to pursue 
That leads to Death or Victory 1 

The simple "liberte cherie" (6) becomes "Thou, more 
dear than meaner gold . . , Liberty." "Beneath our flags" 
is translated as "Where conquest's crimson streamers 
wave." Structurally, Shelley has expanded the original 
eight-line form into nine lines by adding a final line 
rhyming with the second and fourth lines of each stanza. 



Page i4y. Written in very early youth 

The earliest known poem by Shelley is the comical 
"Verses on a Cat." It exists only in a copy said to be in 
the hand of his sister Elizabeth, and bears the notation 
in another hand apparently added later: "Percy Bysshe 
Shelley written at lo years of age to his Sister at School. "^ 
On the basis of this note the poem has been assigned to 
the year 1802. One might suspect, however, that it was 
written somewhat later. Hellen Shelley remembered only 
that it was "a very early effusion," and the copy bears the 
date 1809 in the watermark. 

Next comes a four-line stanza, "Hark; the owlet," which 
is dated in Shelley's Complete Works as 1807. This date, 
however, is based on a statement by Medwin in The Shel- 
ley Papers: "I think he was then about fifteen"^ (Shelley 
became fifteen in the summer of 1807); but as Medwin 
continues, "Shortly afterwards we wrote, in conjunction, 
six or seven cantos on the story of the Wandering Jew," 
and as The Wandering Jew was not begun until the winter 



2 Shelley, Complete Works, III, 314. 

3 London, 1833, p. 7. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

of 1809-1810, it is apparent that Medwin was (not un- 
typically) muddled. Furthermore, the stanza, as Medwin 
apparently did not know, was actually the first stanza of 
a horror poem in Original Poetry (1810) called "Ghasta, 
or. The Avenging Demon! ! !" This stanza, then, was 
probably ^vritten not in 1807 but 1809 or 1810. 

"Cold are the blasts" was, as we have seen, dated by 
Shelley 1808 in the Notebook and July 1810 in Original 
Poetry and may be early i8og. 

There is only one other attribution of a poem earlier 
than 1809. This again is based on Medwin, who gives in 
his life of Shelley two Latin poems "which he [Shelley] 
gave me in 1808 or 9."^ The first of these is a translation of 
the Epitaph to Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Church- 
yard"; the second is a poem on a young lady's watch. As 
this second poem is a Latin version of an English poem 
which appeared in The Oxford Herald for September 
1809,^ the dates for both poems are more likely to be 1809 
than 1808. 

When we examine the claims for extant poems written 
before 1808, then, they seem to fade away, with the ex- 
ception of the verses on the cat, and the date of these 
verses is not certain. Certainly Shelley himself does not 
seem to have preserved anything earlier than 1808 or 
possibly 1809. Is the present poem, then, an exception? 
Does "very early youth" mean, say, 1806 or 1807? Possibly 
so, but it is apparent that Shelley himself either did not 
quite remember when he had written it, or, in view of 



* Medwin, Shelley, p. 35. 

5 Denis Florence MacCarthy, Shelley's Early Life (London, 1872), p. 27. 
In Shelley's version, which is rather more juicy than The Oxford Herald 
version, the young lady's name is given as Leonora. Possibly it was Shelley 
■who suggested "Leonora" as a title for Hogg's now-lost novel. (See above, 
p. 243.) The poem, of course, might have appeared in other places than 
The Oxford Herald. Shelley did not enter Oxford until the fall of 1810. 



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COMMENTARIES 

its juvenile character, wished it to appear earlier than it 
actually was. It is, in fact, in the same vein as the grave- 
yard school effusions in Original Poetry, some of which 
are dated 1810. We might note also the anti-war implica- 
tion of "No votarist, I, at Glory's shrine." All things con- 
sidered, the most likely date seems to be 1809. 



Page 1^8. Zeinah and Kathema 

Before the action of the poem opens, Zeinab has been 
stolen from her home in Cashmere by a band of "Chris- 
tian murderers" (line 33) armed with sword and Bible, and 
taken to their native England. Her beloved, Kathema, 
following her (presumably down the Indus), is, as the poem 
opens, lying on a beach facing westward across the Arabian 
sea. He sees a ship looming up in the sunset. It is bound 
for England. Kathema buys passage. In England he finds 
himself in a corrupt society — "Famine, disease and crime 
even wealth's proud gates pollute" (line 102) — very dif- 
ferent from the "natural" society in the Vale of Cashmere; 
but he bravely pursues his search for Zeinab. One damp 
December evening he comes to a "wild heath," where he 
collapses in exhaustion. When he wakes, the moon is up 
and in its dim light he perceives that he is under a gibbet 
on which, swinging from chains, is the naked and decayed 
body of Zeinab. He mounts the gibbet, winds a chain 
around his neck, and hurls himself out to die beside her 
corpse. In England, the final stanzas inform us, Zeinab 
had been forced into prostitution but escaped and, cor- 
rupted by a corrupt society, "waged ruthless war" against 
it by "its own arms of bold and bloody crime." 

"Here," as Dowden commented, "is romantic ghast- 
liness, as imagined by a boy, in extravagant profusion"; 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

but, as Dowden also pointed out, this was not Shelley's 
main intent; he designed the poem "less as a piece of 
romantic art than as an indictment of widespread evils."* 
"Zeinab and Kathema" combines the old horror-monger- 
ing of Zastrozzi with social radicalism. The poem is in- 
tended primarily as an expose of the evils of contem- 
porary British society and an indictment of its inhuman 
punishments (lines 179-80): 

A universe of horror and decay, 

Gibbets, disease, and wars, and hearts as hard as they. 

One might assume on the basis of the mixture of Gothic 
and radical elements that the poem was written when 
Shelley was emerging from his "votary of romance" period 
into that of a consciousness of "social duties," between, 
say, the fall of 1809 and the spring of 1810. But Shelley's 
penchant for romantic horror continued well beyond this 
time; and there are indications that the poem was later 
than 1809 and probably later than 1810. In the first place, 
Shelley himself did not date it, and, as we have seen, he 
usually does date his "younger poems." It seems especially 
unlikely that he would fail to date a poem so long as this 
one if it had been written in 1809 or even in 1810. 

In the second place, there is the possibility of influence 
from Sydney Owenson's (Lady Morgan) novel The Mis- 
sionary (1811). Dowden suggested that the use of Cashmere 
might have come from this novel, the locale of which is 
Cashmere.*' And there is one other piece of evidence which 
supports this view. In October 1814, after Shelley had left 
Harriet, he wrote asking her to copy and send him a 
"poem called an Indian Tale."^ There is no poem of this 
title in the Esdaile Notebook, but as Roger Ingpen has 

^ Dowden, Shelley, I, 348. 

^October 12, Shelley, Complete Works, VII, 304. 

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COMMENTARIES 

suggested one (and only one) could fit it, namely "Zeinab 
and Kathema,"^ a suggestion which may receive some sup- 
port from the fact that the full title of The Missionary is 
The Missionary , an Indian Tale. 

If "Zeinab and Kathema" was influenced, however 
slightly, by the novel, it must have been written later 
than early June 1811, for Shelley notes in a letter of June 
1 1 to Elizabeth Hitchener that he has just finished reading 
The Missionary.^ About a week later he commented to 
Hogg: "The only thing that has interested me, if I except 
your letters has been one Novel , . It is Miss Owenson's 
Missionary an Indian tale, will you read it, it is really a 
divine thing . . Luxima the Indian is an Angel , . What 
pity that we cannot incorporate these creations of Fancy, 
the very thought of them thrills the soul . . . Since I have 
read this book I have read no other . . . but I have thought 
strangely."^ It is possible, then, that Shelley was working 
on the poem at this time or shortly thereafter (deciding 
to "incorporate" his strange thoughts in poetic fiction). 
At any rate, Shelley was fascinated by a novel about Cash- 
mere and a Cashmere maiden in the summer of 1811, and 
we do not know of any other source from which he could 
have received an impetus for using Cashmere and Cash- 
mere lovers for his poem. The rather idyllic pictures of 
Cashmere in lines 91-100, it should also be noted, are gen- 

8 Ibid. One other (rather horrible) thought, however, also occurs. Let 
us say that Harriet did send the "Indian Tale" to Shelley. If it was the 
same as "Zeinab and Kathema" she must have copied it out, but this 
would have been such a long job that it is difficult to imagine Harriet 
undertaking it. However, let us assume that the "Indian Tale" was an- 
other poem in the Esdaile Notebook and not "Zeinab and Kathema." 
There are two leaves torn out of the Notebook, which obviously contained 
a complete poem of some sixty lines. Perhaps these leaves contained the 
"Indian Tale," and Harriet simply tore them out and sent them to 
Shelley. 

^Ibid., VIII, 103. 

^Shelley and his Circle, II, 810. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

erally reminiscent of Miss Owenson's novel. On the other 
hand, the novel is definitely not a major source for the 
poem. It is a romantic tale of a Catholic missionary falling 
in love with an Indian priestess. There is nothing in it 
about a heroine being captured and sent to England or 
forced into prostitution, although in the final episodes the 
priestess leaps madly into the flames of an inquisitional 
pyre to save her lover somewhat as Kathema does on the 
gibbet. 

It may be argued against this dating that the style of 
the poem seems earlier than 1811. But further reading 
suggests (at least to this editor) that its more ragged lines 
are the result of the kind of violent emotional involve- 
ment with the subject matter which Shelley in these years 
had not the skill to handle. We find the same phenomenon 
in some of the poems written at Cwm Elan in 1811 and in 
"a Tale of Society as it is." Moreover, some of the lines, 
for instance, the passionate indictment of English society, 
have a ring of reality which the earlier, more derivative 
manner did not have, and some of the images (for instance, 
"slow-raised surges near the strand" — line 65) seem 
aesthetically above anything that Shelley produced in 1 809 
or 1810. 

The radical content points in the same direction. It is 
not just the general anti-kings and anti-war republicanism 
of "Henry and Louisa," but a deeper and more sociological 
radicalism. The poem, in fact, sometimes sounds rather 
like a creative interpretation of Godwin's remarks in 
Political Justice on unjust laws and punishments ;2 it em- 
bodies Godwin's general thesis (later taken up by Robert 
Owen) that social evils arise not from defects in human 
nature but from defects in society. 

There is also one other indication of an 1811 date, slight 

2 Godwin, Political Justice, I, 12-14; II, 323. 

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COMMENTARIES 

though it is. Shelley almost certainly took the name Zeinab 
from Southey's Thalaba, in which Thalaba's mother is 
named Zeinab. Perhaps, then, Kathema was suggested by 
Kehama in Southey's The Curse of Kehama. Shelley, how- 
ever, did not read this book until at least December 1810.^ 

In some of its general characteristics, "Zeinab and 
Kathema" anticipates Laon and Cythna {The Revolt of 
Islam; 1817). Laon and Cythna are also a pair of lovers; 
Cythna is taken off by an armed band and forced into the 
seraglio of "the tyrant"; Laon searches for her, finds her, 
and in the end the two are burned at the stake. Some of 
this, Shelley took from the Ahrimanes of his friend Pea- 
cock,* but there are echoes suggesting that he still had 
"Zeinab and Kathema" in mind. For instance, the scene 
in which the imprisoned and chained Laon has can- 
nibalistic fantasies in his delirium^ is reminiscent of the 
ghastly climax on the gibbet. The opening scene on the 
beach seems to be echoed in the opening of Laon and 
Cythna, in which Laon sees from the shore a form "like a 
great ship in the sun's sinking sphere."^ In Laon and 
Cythna we also find an evil "blood-red Comet" and a good 
"Morning star,"^ symbols which Shelley had not used in 
his poetry in the intervening years.^ Further study would 
perhaps reveal other parallels. 

The Missionary, as we have noted, is not a major source 
for "Zeinab and Kathema." Was there such a source? None 
comes to mind from what we know of Shelley's early read- 

3 Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 21, 22, 99. 

* Kenneth Neill Cameron, "Shelley and Ahrimanes" Modern Language 
Quarterly, III (June 1942) 287-95. 

^ Laon and Cythna, I, xxv-xxvi. 

»Ibid., I, vi. 

^ Ibid., I, xxvi; "Zeinab and Kathema," lines 171-4. 

^ Line 173 may have been subconsciously in Shelley's mind in the de- 
scription of Claire Clairmont in Epipsychidion (line 368): "Thou too, O 
Comet beautiful and fierce." 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

ing.^ It may be that, as with "Henry and Louisa," he had 
no such source, but combined romantic elements — the 
lovers violently parted, the search for the beloved — with 
real ones, such as those in "a Tale of Society as it is," pos- 
sibly taken from some historical account of crime and 
punishment. 

Shelley's tale is certainly fantastic, especially its conclu- 
sion, but its indictment of inhuman punishment is hardly 
exaggerated. Men were still hanged, drawn, and quartered 
in Shelley's day; and "gibbeting" was legal until 1834. 
Shelley, we might note, uses the word in its technical sense. 
A gibbet was a kind of gallows with a long wooden arm 
extending outward, from which the body of an executed 
criminal was hanged in chains (that is, was "gibbeted").^ 
The bodies of highwaymen and other criminals were dis- 
played, in particular on Hounslow Heath in Middlesex,^ 
and people used to ride out from London in their carriages 
to observe them. When we note that Hounslow Heath was 
in the general vicinity of Shelley's first school, Sion House, 
and that a main coach road he must many times have 
traveled went through it, it seems probable that Shelley 
himself saw gibbeted bodies. Hounslow, then, is doubtless 
the "wild heath" of the poem (line 123). We might note 
also that at least two women were hanged for highway 
robbery (although there seems to be no record of any being 
gibbeted). The horror of gibbeting was still remembered 
in Victorian times — as witness Tennyson's "Rizpah." 

^ One might guess from line 48 and other lines that Shelley had recently 
been reading Spenser or his imitators, but this influence was probably 
stylistic only. 

1 For a description of a gibbet, see Patrick Pringle, Stand and Deliver: 
The Story of the Highwaymen (London, 1951), pp. 68-70. 

2 George S. Maxwell, Highivay man's Heath: The Story in Fact and 
Fiction of Hounslow Heath in Middlesex CHounsIow, 1949). Maxwell in- 
cludes pictures of gibbets (pp. 177 and 192). 

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COMMENTARIES 

Page 755. The Retrospect 

ShelleYj as we have seen, stayed with his cousins the 
Groves at their Welsh estate, Cwm Elan, in July and Aug- 
ust 1811, just prior to his elopement with Harriet West- 
brook. In April of the following year, after his return from 
Ireland, he took a house about a mile and half from Cwm 
Elan and intended to settle there. He was, however, unable 
to secure the property, and moved, on about June 5, to 
Cwm Elan — with Harriet and Eliza — and stayed there 
until about June 20.^ 

The suggestion for the poem perhaps came from Robert 
Southey's "The Retrospect" (1794). Southey begins, as 
does Shelley, with comments on the passing of time, and 
then addresses the following lines to his wife: 

O thou, the mistress of my future days. 
Accept thy minstrel's retrospective lays; 
To whom the minstrel and the lyre belong. 
Accept, my edith. Memory's pensive song. 
Of long past days I sing, ere yet I knew 
Or thought and grief, or happiness and you; 
Ere yet my infant heart had learnt to prove 
The cares of life, the hopes and fears of love. 

With these early lines, however, the comparison between 
the two poems ceases, for Southey goes on to describe his 
schooldays. 

The light which "The Retrospect" throws on Shelley's 
first visit to Cwm Elan and his psychological state at that 
time, we have already discussed in commenting on the 
poems he actually wrote during this visit. What light does 

3 To Elizabeth Kitchener, June 6, 1812, June [18, 1812], Shelley, Com- 
plete Works, VIII, 332, 338. Harriet Shelley to Catherine Nugent, June 30, 
[1812], ibid., IX, 3. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

it throw on the period of the second visit? That second 
visit, one would gather, was a pleasant one. Harriet at 
first found Mrs. Grove rather "formal" but soon warmed 
up to her and to Cwm Elan: "For the present I am tied Leg 
and Wing by the chain of Mysticis[m] to this enchanting 
place."^ Shelley's feelings toward Harriet we can gather 
from the poem: 

How do I feel my happiness? 
I cannot tell, but they may guess 
^Vhose every gloomy feeling gone. 
Friendship and passion feel alone . . . 

Thou fair in form and pure in mind, 
Whose ardent friendship rivets fast 
The flowery band our fates that bind, 
Which incorruptible shall last . . . 

Professor "WHiite regarded this as a "glowing tribute to 
Harriet."^ It seems to me, however, as with some of Shel- 
ley's other tributes to her, rather tame. One is reminded 
of his comments to Harriet on the nature of their "attach- 
ment" after his elopement with Mary Godwin: "Friend- 
ship was its basis, & on this basis it has enlarged &: 
strengthened. It is no reproach to me that you have never 
filled my heart with an all-sufficing passion perhaps, you 
are even yourself a stranger to these impulses which one 
day may be awakened by some nobler & worthier than me, 
and may you find a lover as passionate and faithful, as I 
shall ever be a friend affectionate & sincere!"^ 

Certainly the emphasis in the poem is on "friendship." 

•* Harriet Shelley to Catherine Nugent, June 7, [1812], Shelley, Complete 
Works, VIII. 333; June 30, [1812], ibid., IX, 3; to Elizabeth Kitchener, 
June 11, 1812, ibid., VIII, 335-6. 

s White, Shelley, I, 235. 

^Shellev to Harriet Shelley, [mid- July, 1814], Shelley, Complete Works, 
VII, 294. See also above, p. 219. 

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COMMENTARIES 

"Passion," however, though placed second, is mentioned. 
And in the letter Shelley continued, evidently feeling 
that he had placed too exclusive an emphasis on friend- 
ship: "Shall I not be more than a friend? Oh, far more, 
Brother, Father of your child, so dear as it is to us both, 
for its own sake & because we love each other." What he 
seems to be saying is that although there was no deeply 
passionate love in their relationship, there was, never- 
theless, love, a love similar to that of friendship but some- 
what more "ardent." 

"The Retrospect" is technically the best of the longer 
poems that Shelley had written up to this time. It has none 
of the awkwardness that sometimes besets "Henry and 
Louisa" and "Zeinab and Kathema," but is both taut and 
easy-flowing. Its style is in the early-nineteenth-century 
mode and yet is original (compared, for instance, with 
Southey's "Retrospect," which reads like watered-down 
Shenstone). We have to recognize also, however, that 
Shelley in these apprentice years is more adept in the 
couplet (as witness the first of the Margaret Nicholson 
poems) than in complex stanzaic forms. 

The image in the early (unpublished) lines of time as 
a female monster giving birth to and then devouring her 
young is a striking one. It is reminiscent of Spenser's 
Errour {Faerie Queene, I, i, 15) and Milton's Sin, but its 
mythological origin is perhaps in the story of Saturn 
(Cronos) devouring his children, for Saturn (apparently 
through a confusion of "Cronos" with "chronos") was 
sometimes said by the mythologists to symbolize time. 

The title of the poem, we might note, is "The Retro- 
spect," not as Dowden and subsequent editors and biog- 
raphers have given it: "The Retrospect: Cwm Elan, 1812." 
Shelley placed a period after "Retrospect," and put "Cwm 
Elan 1812" on the next line. "Cwm Elan 1812," therefore, 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



was not intended to be part of the title but simply an 
indication of place of composition and date. 



Page i6i. The wandering Jew's soliloquy 

The story of Shelley's interest in the Wandering Jew is 
long and complex.' He perhaps first encountered him in 
Monk Lewis's horror novel The Monk. When he was still 
an Eton schoolboy he and his cousin Thomas Medwin 
began a long anti-religious narrative poem, The Wander- 
if^g J^w, in which the Jew was presented sympathetically, 
and God, who had condemned him to wander forever, 
undying, was the villain, the "Eternal Avenger." Canto 
III revolved around God's refusal to allow the Jew release 
from his sufferings in death, and it was this theme of 
physical immortality that fascinated Shelley. He returned 
to it in Qiieen Mab, where the wandering Jew makes a 
brief but dramatic appearance; and he treated it in a 
prose fragment, which he gave to Hogg.^ 

When we turn to these various versions we find that the 
only one which is at all close to "The wandering Jew's 
soliloquy" is that in Canto III of The Wandering Jew. 
In both Queen Mab and the prose fragment the re- 
semblances are merely of a general nature (the "avenger" 
theme). And even the parallels in The Wandering Jew 
are only with the first five lines of the "soliloquy"; for in- 
stance: 

I have cast myself from the mountain's height. 
Above was day — below was night; 

^ See Cameron, The Young Shelley, pp. 34-5, 306-13. 
8 Now in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, Shelley arid his Circle, II, 
649-59- 



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COMMENTARIES 

The substantial clouds that lower'd beneath 
Bore my detested form; 
They whirl'd it above the volcanic breath, 
And the meteors of the storm; 
The torrents of electric flame 
Scorch'd to a cinder my fated frame. 
Hark to the thunder's awful crash — 
Hark to the midnight lightning's hissP 

The parallels of "hell," "frame," and "lightning" — and 
there is a dagger at line 280 which will not quench life, 
as in line 5 of the "soliloquy" — show that there is some 
connection between the two versions, but there are also 
sufficient differences to show that it was not close. For in- 
stance, the casting from a mountain is not present in the 
"soliloquy" and the Biblical references of the second part 
of the "soliloquy" are not in the narrative. Furthermore, 
the two poems differ in verse form and in quality, the verse 
of the narrative having a harsh and tinny sound which 
makes the "soliloquy" seem relatively mature. Whatever 
the origin of the "soliloquy." it seems clear that it was not 
written as part of The Wandering Jew. Its level of techni- 
cal skill is closer to that of Queen Mah; but its rhymed 
verse form shows that it cannot have been part of Queen 
Mah either. Apparently it was an independent poem. 

When was it written? The technique indicates a date 
later than that of The Wandering Jew, which was com- 
pleted by at least the summer of 1810. We can probably 
advance this initial date to November 1810 on the fol- 
lowing grounds: under the heading of Chapter X of his 
novel St. Irvyne, Shelley quotes some lines from The 
Wandering Jew (on his attempts to achieve death); if he 
had written the "soliloquy" by that time he would pre- 
sumably have preferred it to the inferior lines of The 

^ The Wandering Jew, III, 171-80. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Wandering Jew; Shelley was working on St. Irvyne as late 
as November 1810. As for the latest possible date, the fact 
that the treatment is closer to The Wandering Jew than 
to the Queen Mab episode suggests that it was written 
before Queen Mab (begun in the summer of 1812). 

Although, as Bennett Weaver has shown, Shelley had 
read widely in the Bible,^ the Biblical references in this 
poem are not all exact. It may be that he was recalling 
commentaries on the Bible or sermons or, perhaps, anti- 
religious works such as those of Paine and Holbach which 
quoted Scripture with Satanic intent, for Shelley's ex- 
amples are designed to show the inhumanity and destruc- 
tiveness of the Biblical God. The reference to Korah (who 
with his followers was destroyed for opposing Moses) is 
clear enough, and will be found in Numbers xvi; the 
fiery sword is, of course, that which expelled Adam and 
Eve from Eden. It is not, however, described in Genesis 
(or Paradise Lost) as "two-edged". The destruction of Sen- 
nacherib and his Assyrian army is celebrated in various 
places in the Old Testament (for instance, in II Kings 
xviii-xix), but in none of them is there a mention of a 
"fiery tide." Apparently Shelley meant the phrase only in 
a general metaphorical sense. Exactly what he had in mind 
in the "noonday pestilence" is not clear. Professor Weaver 
refers to the pestilence of I Chronicles xxi, which came 
upon Israel because David numbered its people.^ But 
neither here nor in the retelling of the story in II Samuel 
XXIV is there a reference to "noonday." Perhaps this is 
an echo blended in from the Ninety-first Psalm: "Nor for 
the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruc- 
tion that wasteth at noonday." 

1 Bennett Weaver, Toward the Understanding of Shelley, University of 
Michigan Press, 1932. 
^Ibid., p. 134. 

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COMMENTARIES 



The word "remit" in the final line is somewhat cryptic; 
the Jew means that if God will take back the curse He 
placed upon him he can die (which is what he wishes). 



Page 1 6^. To I ant he 

Shelley and Harriet's first child lanthe (later Mrs. Ed- 
ward Jeffries Esdaile and future owner of the Esdaile 
Notebook — it was found in her coat pocket after her 
death) was born on June 23, 1813.^ Whether she was born 
in London or Pimlico (where the Shelleys moved at about 
this time) has been a matter of controversy. And there has 
been some confusion on the exact form of her name. 

To take the problem of the name first; some biographers 
give the name as lanthe Eliza, some as Eliza lanthe. The 
signature on the front endpaper of the Esdaile Notebook 
(presumably lanthe's) is "lanthe E Esdaile"; and the name 
on her tombstone is lanthe Eliza Shelley Esdaile. This 
would appear to settle the matter. However, the baptismal 
record gives the name as Eliza lanthe, and so, too, do the 
documents submitted by the Westbrooks and Shelley at 
the trial for the custody of lanthe and Charles in 1817.^ 
Possibly, lanthe did not herself know how her name ap- 
peared on the baptismal registry and assumed that lanthe 
was her first name (Shelley and Harriet and Charles in 
their letters call her simply lanthe); or she may have pre- 
ferred lanthe Eliza.^ 

Shelley's cousin and biographer, Thomas Medwin, states 

^Louise Schutz Boas, Harriet Shelley (London, New York, Toronto, 1962), 
pp. 129 and 176 — baptismal record and tombstone inscription. (The baptis- 
mal records are those of St. George's parish, which includes Chapel Street, 
where the Westbrooks lived, and — see below — Dover Street and Half 
Moon Street, where Shelley and Harriet lived.) 

* Quoted in Medwin, Shelley, Appendix HI; see pp. 463, 469, 470. 

^ lanthe was the name of the heroine of Qiieen Mat, which must have 



(287) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

that lanthe was born in a hotel in London; but he appar- 
ently based this statement simply on the fact that Shelley 
addressed two letters to Medwin's father from Cooke's 
Hotel in Dover Street, one before the birth, on June 21, 
one after the birth, on June 28.^ 

Hogg, contradicting Medwin, said he believed lanthe 
had been born at Pimlico and not in Cooke's Hotel, for 
the "first time I called there [at Pimlico] was so soon after 
the birth of the child that it is hardly possible to suppose 
that she could have been removed thither from Dover 
Street.'"^ But, as Hogg himself tells us that he was never 
inside the Pimlico house and obviously had no exact 
knowledge of the time of lanthe's birth, his impression is 
not of prime importance. 

There is, moreover, one piece of evidence that neither 
Hogg nor Medwin knew about. On June 27 Shelley sent a 
note by his servant from Cooke's Hotel to his Welsh friend 
John Williams, who was visiting London: "If you can call 
any time before two o'clock, I shall be at home, if after- 
wards, Mrs. S. will be very happy to see you . . . Dan will 
show you the way."^ Harriet, then, was in London on June 
27; and it is unlikely that, if she had given birth in Pimlico 
on June 23, she would be in London four days later. The 
place of birth, then, was almost certainly London. Was it, 
however, Cooke's Hotel? 

Let us return to Hogg: "At the end of March 1813, 
Shelley and Harriet came from Killarney. . . . They re- 
mained a few days at a hotel in Dover Street, and then 
Harriet took lodgings in Half Moon Street [a few blocks 



been published at about the time of lanthe's birth; Eliza was presumably 
in honor of Harriet's sister, Elizabeth, who was always known as Eliza. 

^ Medwin, Shelley, p. 20. For Medwin's possession of these letters, see 
Ernest J. Lovell, Captain Medwin (University of Texas Press, [1962]), p. 311. 

■^ Hogg, Shelley, II, 106; see also pp. 5, 68. 

8 Shelley, Works, IX, 72. This note was first printed in 1920. 



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COMMENTARIES 

from Dover Street], accounting the situation fashionable."^ 
As no letters of Shelley bearing a Half Moon Street address 
have so far been published, some skepticism has been 
voiced on Hogg's statement. But there is a letter (unpub- 
lished) in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library addressed by 
Shelley from Half Moon Street. The lodgings, then, un- 
questionably existed. (They appear from Hogg's descrip- 
tions to have consisted of furnished rooms, a sitting room 
on the ground floor and one or more bedrooms above.) It 
seems more likely that lanthe was born at these "fashion- 
able" lodgings than at Cooke's Hotel. 

One question remains: if Shelley and Harriet had been 
living in Half Moon Street since April, why was Shelley 
addressing letters from Cooke's Hotel in June? Hogg tells 
us that he used the hotel for business meetings; and he 
might well have wished also to hide his true address from 
his pressing creditors. Shelley, then, apparently continued 
to retain a room at the hotel. 

After a few weeks in Pimlico the Shelleys moved again, 
this time to the village of Bracknell (some thirty miles 
away). There they were visited by Thomas Love Peacock, 
who was impressed by Shelley's attention to the baby: "He 
was extremely fond of it, and would walk up and down a 
room with it in his arms for a long time together, singing 
to it a monotonous melody of his own making. . . ."^ Har- 
riet wrote to her Irish friend Catherine Nugent: "I wish 
you could see my sweet babe. She is so fair, with such blue 
eyes, that the more I see her the more beautiful she looks."^ 
The opening of Shelley's sonnet is the poetical expression 
of the same feeling of happiness in the dimpled, blue-eyed 
baby. 



^ Hogg, Shelley, II, 68; see also pp. 5, 26. 

1 Peacock, Memoirs, pp. 69-70. 

2 October 11, 1813, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 79. 



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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



Page 1 6^. Evening — to Harriet 

The line-numbered section of the Notebook ends, as we 
have seen (page 21), with "The wandering Jew's solilo- 
quy." Then come the two sonnets "To lanthe" and 
"Evening — to Harriet," on facing pages, "To lanthe" on 
the left-hand page. They are the last poems in the book 
in Shelley's hand. Following them come transcriptions by 
Harriet. 

Both poems present problems in dating of a type un- 
usual in Shelley scholarship. As a rule, dating problems in 
Shelley arise because he has neglected to put down any 
date. For these sonnets he added too many dates. 

Let us consider the sonnet "To lanthe" — on the left- 
hand page — first. At the top, following the title, Shelley 
has written "Oct," crossed it out, and substituted "Sept^ 
1813." This dating is in an ink considerably darker than 
that used for the title and the body of the sonnet, and so 
was probably added later. When we look across at the 
right-hand page, at the sonnet to Harriet, we immediately 
see that the ink is somewhat darker than that of the sonnet 
to lanthe, which probably means that the two sonnets 
were not copied into the book at the same time. Then we 
see that Shelley has again added a date after the title — 
"Sep. 1813" — and this is in the same dark ink as the other 
added date. As this ink is still darker than that of the 
sonnet to Harriet, it would seem that this date also was 
added after the sonnets were copied. Thus to the eye the 
appearance of the two pages suggests three separate times 
of writing: the sonnet to lanthe, the sonnet to Harriet, 
the dates at the top. 

If we now read through the sonnet to Harriet we find, 
on the line below its last line, the date "July 31^*. 1813" 

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COMMENTARIES 

written in ink of about the same consistency as that of the 
sonnet itself. The indication is that this date was added 
when the sonnet was copied into the Notebook. We might 
note also that the "from" and the crossing out of the "to" 
(see Textual Notes) are in ink of the same shade as the 
July 31 date and the sonnet as a whole. This would in- 
dicate that Shelley read the sonnet over after he had copied 
it, changed "to" to "from," and added the date. 

Why, then, if Shelley placed the date July 31 below the 
sonnet shortly after composing it did he also place the 
date "Sep." at the top? Dowden suggested that this Septem- 
ber dating was that "of Shelley's copying the poem into the 
book."^ This is perhaps the most likely explanation, al- 
though one objection, at least, can be raised against it. If 
it is a date of copying, then that at the top of the sonnet 
to lanthe is presumably a date of copying also; but on 
this date, as we have noted, Shelley hesitated, writing 
"Oct" first, then crossing it out and writing "Sepf." Shel- 
ley might not always have known the date within a month, 
but he would normally know the month itself. Two solu- 
tions to this difficulty may be suggested: (a) Shelley might 
have been writing on the last day of September or the 
first of October, in which case he could have had some 
hesitation, (b) The darker ink suggests, as we have seen, 
that these dates were written in later. How much later, of 
course, the ink alone cannot tell us; perhaps a few hours, 
perhaps several months. If there was a long lapse of time, 
however, Shelley might not have remembered whether he 
had done the copying in September or October. 

Why, one might wonder, were dates of copying added 
at all? As Harriet herself, as we shall see, noted a copying 
date, she may have regarded some of them as important 

3 Dowden, Shelley, I, 385 n. 

(291) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

(presumably for sentimental reasons), so that perhaps Shel- 
ley added these dates at her request. That the poems were 
copied in especially for Harriet is indicated by the fact 
that they are carefully written and fully punctuated (in 
contrast to the previous poems). Presumably, then, at the 
time they were copied the Notebook was regarded as 
Harriet's. 

Whatever the explanation for the puzzling September 
dates at the top of the sonnets, however, there can be little 
doubt that the actual date of composition for the sonnet to 
Harriet was July 31, 1813. 

What, then, of the sonnet to lanthe? Here we have a cer- 
tain initial date of composition, namely, that of lanthe's 
birth, June 23, 1813, and the fact that this sonnet is 
followed by the sonnet to Harriet probably indicates that 
it was written at about the same time, probably earlier 
rather than later. That it cannot have been written long 
after lanthe's birth is shown by the sonnet itself, which is 
clearly addressed to a very young infant (with "weak" 
frame and "passive eyes"). 

The sonnet to Harriet was apparently written (in the 
"evening") after a lover's quarrel. What this quarrel was 
about we do not know, but it more likely had to do with 
Eliza than Harriet directly. Peacock, who was with the 
Shelleys at Bracknell, tells us that lanthe was "looked after 
by his wife's sister, whom he intensely disliked,"^ and this 
was confirmed by Shelley himself: "It is a sight which 
awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and horror, 
to see her caress my poor little lanthe."^ 



* Peacock, Memoirs, p. 70. 

•"'To T. J. Hogg, March 16, 1814, Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 87. 

(292) 



COMMENTARIES 



Page i6^. To Harriett ("Thy look of love"f 

In the spring of 1814, at least two months before Shelley 
became interested in Mary Godwin, his marriage with 
Harriet began to break up. This is apparent from a letter 
that he wrote to Hogg on March 16, 1814, from the village 
of Bracknell, where he was then living: 

I have been staying with Mrs. B[oinville] for the last 
month; I have escaped, in the society of all that philos- 
ophy and friendship combine, from the dismaying soli- 
tude of myself .... my heart sickens at the view of that 
necessity, which will quickly divide me from the delight- 
ful tranquillity of this happy home — for it has become 
my home .... Eliza is still with us — not here! — but 
will be with me when the infinite malice of destiny forces 
me to depart. I am now but little inclined to contest this 
point. I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul.'^ 

The following week Shelley and Harriet were together 
in London; on March 24 they were remarried, as there 
was some doubt about the legality of their Scottish union. 

The next month, on April 18, Mrs. Boinville wrote 
from Bracknell to Hogg: 

Shelley is again a widower; his beauteous half went to 
town on Thursday with Miss Westbrook, who is gone to 
live, I believe, at Southhampton.^ 

Also in April, Shelley wrote a poem, "Stanzas: April, 
1814," in which he once more laments having to leave 

6 In regard to Harriet's spelling of the name, we might note Shelley's 
letter to Thomas Charles Medwin, October 21, 1811, asking him to draw 
up a marriage settlement: "I wish the sum settled on my wife in case of 
my death to be £700 per annum. The maiden name is Harriett Westbrook, 
with two T's — Harriett." (Shelley, Complete Works, VIII, 162.) Both 
Harriet and Shelley, however, usually spelled it with one "t." Apparently 
"Harriett" was the legal form of the name, and this Shelley wished to 
establish for the settlement. See also Medwin, Shelley, Appendix III, p. 
463. 

7 Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 85-6. 

8 Hogg, Shelley, II, 145. 



( 293 ) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Mrs. Boinville's house. In the fall, looking back over these 
events, he wrote again to Hogg: 

In the beginning of Spring, I spent two months at Mrs. 
Boinville's without my wife .... The presence of 
Mrs. Boinville & her daughter afforded a strange contrast 
to my former friendship & deplorable condition .... I 
saw the full extent of the calamity which my rash & heart- 
less union with Harriet: an union over whose entrance 
might justly be inscribed "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi 
ch'entratel" had produced.*^ 

Shelley, then, must have spent most of March and April 
at Mrs. Boinville's house, and Harriet was away. Where 
she was or why she was away we do not know, but she and 
Eliza were evidently together and there had been trouble 
over Eliza's presence in the household. 

Shelley's stay at Mrs. Boinville's was not, as he seems to 
imply to Hogg in the fall, continuous. He informed Hogg 
on March 16 that he was returning home; this probably 
means that Harriet was coming back. Perhaps she did so 
only after the remarriage on March 24. Eliza, as we learn 
from Mrs, Boinville, came back with her; but by April 18 
Shelley was "again a widower"; Harriet and Eliza had both 
left, Harriet going to London and Eliza to Southampton. 
Shelley then apparently went back to Mrs. Boinville's. 
There, it would appear from his April poem and other 
evidence, he began to show some romantic interest in Mrs. 
Boinville's daughter, Cornelia Turner. Whether Harriet 
later returned for a time to Bracknell from London is not 
known. The next we hear of her she is in Bath, early in 
July, and then at Bracknell.^ In the meantime, Shelley had 
met Mary Godwin. 



^ New Shelley Letters, p. 76. 

1 Mrs. Godwin says that Harriet came to London from Bracknell in 
July. (Dowden, Shelley, II, 543.) 

(294) 



COMMENTARIES 

On June 8 ^ Hogg accompanied Shelley to Godwin's 
house: 

I stood reading the names of old English authors on the 
backs of the venerable volumes, when the door was par- 
tially and softly opened. A thrilling voice called "Shel- 
ley!" A thrilling voice answered "Mary!" And he darted 
out of the room, like an arrow from the bow of the far- 
shooting king. A very young female, fair and fair-haired, 
pale indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of 
tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time, had 
called him out of the room. He was absent a very short 
time — a minute or two; and then returned. "Godwin 
is out; there is no use in waiting." So we continued our 
walk along Holborn. 

"Who was that, pray?" I asked, "a daughter?" 

"Yes." 

"A daughter of William Godwin?" 

"The daughter of Godwin and Mary."^ 

Shelley and Mary, then, had obviously met before June 
8. How long before, we can determine from William God- 
win's Journal. In April, Godwin records no visits from 
Shelley (then presumably living mainly at Mrs. Boinville's 
in Bracknell), In May, however, the picture changes. God- 
win records Shelley's presence at his house on May 5, 6, 13, 
18, 20, 23, 26, 27. In June the visits become even more 
frequent, Shelley dining at the Godwins' on June 19, 20, 
22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29. The first declaration of love, ac- 
cording to Godwin, came on June 26; Shelley and Mary 
perhaps first actually made love on June 27.^ 

2 Godwin records the date in his Journal (Abinger Manuscript, Pforz- 
heimer microfilm). 

3 Hogg, Shelley, II, 148. 

* Godwin to John Taylor, August 27, 1814, quoted in White, Shelley, I, 
338. On August 4, 1814, Shelley wrote an entry in Mary Godwin's Journal: 
"Mary told me that this was my birthday; I thought it had been the 27th 
June." (Mary Shelley's Journal, p. 5.) Raymond D. Havens believed that 
this meant that it was on this date that "Shelley first learned of Mary's 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

On July 6 Harriet wrote from Bath to Shelley's friend 
Thomas Hookham in London: "I would not trouble you 
but it is now four days since I have heard from him which 
to me is an age."^ On July 8 Godwin's notation "Talk with 
Mary" indicates his first sign of concern. By July 15 Har- 
riet was back from Bath and called on Godwin with Shel- 
ley; Godwin was not in; but then later "call[ed] on Shel- 
ley," which indicates that Shelley and Harriet were not 
living together in London. Harriet was presumably at her 
father's house. Within two weeks Shelley and Mary had 
eloped — as Godwin noted with typical meticulousness in 
his entry for July 28 — at "Five in the morning," and Mrs. 
Godwin took off in pursuit by the Dover coach. 

It has usually been considered that June was the month 
in which Shelley began to take an interest in Mary. This 
seems to be supported by Shelley himself. "In the month 
of June," he told Hogg in his letter of October 3, "I came 
to London to accomplish some business with Godwin that 
had been long depending. The circumstances of the case 
required an almost constant residence at his house. There 
I met his daughter Mary." After describing her beauties 
of mind and body, he concludes: "I speedily conceived an 
ardent passion to possess this inestimable treasure."® 

Godwin's Journal, however, shows that it was in May 
and not June that Shelley's visits began. And if "speedily" 
means the usual Shelleyan speed, it indicates May. This 
too, was Mrs. Godwin's recollection. "In May," she wrote 
a few months later, "Mary came home from Scotland, and 



regard for him." (Modern Language Notes, April 1930, p. 225.) Havens, 
however, does not mention Godwin's comment; and on matters of date 
Godwin is likely to have been accurate. On this matter, however, Shelley 
is likely to have been accurate also; June 27 must have had special 
significance — and it was the day after the declaration of love. 

Shelley, Complete Works, IX, 91. 

^New Shelley Letters, pp. 77, 78. 



(296) 



COMMENTARIES 

then began all our troubles. He paid her the most devoted 
attentions, and my husband spoke to him on the subject. 

Mr. S declared that it was only his manner with all 

women. Shortly after, Harriet Shelley came up from Brack- 
nell suddenly, and saw me and my husband alone. She was 
very much agitated, and wept, poor dear young lady, a 
great deal, because Mr. Shelley had told her yesterday at 
Bracknell that he was desperately in love with Mary God- 
win." As Dowden points out, the chronology here is some- 
what shaky.''' Mary returned not in May but on March 30; 
the talk with Shelley and Harriet's visit must have oc- 
curred in July. But there is no reason to doubt the es- 
sential truth of Mrs. Godwin's story. Her memory of May 
as the month in which the "troubles" began is probably 
correct; she doubtless saw more than her husband did; 
and the numerous visits by Shelley in May were obviously 
not all motivated by an obsession with Godwin's business 
problems (which Shelley had successfully resisted in March 
and April). 

Moreover, May as the starting point for Shelley's in- 
terest in Mary is indicated also, it seems to me, in this 
poem, "To Harriett ('Thy look of love')," written in 
May, and at Cooke's HoteP — in Dover Street, London, 
where the Shelleys, as we have seen, had stayed briefly the 
previous spring and which Shelley used for business pur- 
poses. The poem, then, was written in London; but that 
Harriet was not in London in May, or in June either, is 
indicated by a lack of reference to her in Godwin's Journal 



7 Dowden, Shelley, II, 543. 

8 Harriet places "Cook's Hotel" (which Shelley apparently spelled 
"Cooke's") at the bottom of the first page, after stanza three, and the 
date at the end of the poem on the opposite page. Why she separated the 
two is not clear. Possibly she was copying from a letter (see below) and 
the two were separated there. Or perhaps she was in a depressed or agi- 
tated state when she was copying. 



(297) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

and by other evidence. She was perhaps at Bracknell; or 
she may have left for Bath in May. Shelley's frequent visits 
to Godwin indicate that he was living most of the time in 
London and this makes it more likely that Harriet was at 
Bath (108 miles from London) rather than at Bracknell 
(27 miles from London). In either case the probability is 
that the poem was mailed to Harriet in a letter and the 
letter was dated from Cooke's Hotel. 

Dowden commented, in part, on the poem as follows: 

In this piteous appeal Shelley declares that he has now 
no grief but one — the grief of having known and lost his 
wife's love; if it is the fate of all who would live in the 
sunshine of her affection to endure her scorn, then let him 
be scorned above the rest, for he most of all has desired 
that sunshine; let not the world and the pride of life 
harden her heart; it is better that she should be kind and 
gentle; if she has something to endure, it is not much, 
and all her husband's weal hangs upon her loving endur- 
ance; for, see, how pale and wildered anguish has made 
him; oh! in mercy do not cure his malady by the fatal 
way of condemning him to exile beyond all hope or 
further fear; oh! trust no erring guide, no unwise counsel- 
lor, no false pride; rather learn that a nobler pride may 
find its satisfaction in and through love; or if love be for 
ever dead, at least let pity survive in its room.^ 

There is doubtless truth in this interpretation, but it 
seems to miss the main point. What was it that stirred 
Shelley to write it? Why the note of guilt: 

Then hear thy chosen own [i.e. admit], too late. 
His heart most worthy of thy hate. 

Why the obvious suffering and moral conflict? Shelley 
showed no such symptoms in his letter to Hogg on March 
16. The answer must be that he had begun to feel an at- 

8 Dowden, Shelley, I, 413. 

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COMMENTARIES 

traction to Mary and was torn between this and his duty 
to Harriet, The poem probably marks the beginning of 
that traumatic ambivalence which Peacock noted in July: 
"Between his old feelings towards Harriet, from whom he 
was not then separated, and his new passion for Mary, he 
showed in his looks, in his gestures, in his speech, the state 
of a mind 'suffering, like a little kingdom, the nature of an 
insurrection.' His eyes were bloodshot, his hair and dress 
disordered. He caught up a bottle of laudanum, and said: 
'I never part from this.' "^ 

Seen in this light, "To Harriett" is a very different poem 
from what it appeared to Dowden and other commenta- 
tors. Shelley, frightened by the intensity of his feeling for 
Mary, is trying to move back to Harriet and urges her, for 
this reason, finally to get rid of Eliza (the "erring guide" 
is obviously Eliza). Clearly Harriet still has more attraction 
for him than he admitted in his letter to Hogg in the fall 
in which he represented the charms of Mary as instantly 
overwhelming. At the time of writing this poem — prob- 
ably late in May — he has by no means decided that his 
way must lie with Mary; he is, in fact, in turmoil, caught 
up by "the stormiest passion of my soul." 

Harriet, of course, did not, when she received the poem, 
see all the motives behind it or the implications in it. By 
the time she copied it into the Notebook, however, these 
were doubtless apparent. When this was we do not know, 
but as she and not Shelley did the copying, it was prob- 
ably after Shelley's elopement with Mary, and as the poem 
is followed by one dated 1815, probably before the end 
of 1815. 



1 Peacock, Memoirs, p. 91. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page i6y. Full many a mind 

Following "To Harriett ('Thy look of love')" comes 
a blank left-hand page, then these lines in Harriet's hand 
on the facing right-hand page, dated below the verses: 
"Stanmore. 1815." In 1815 Stanmore was a village of a few 
hundred inhabitants ten miles out on a main coach road 
— the Edgware Road — from London. It had two inns 
and there were several gentlemen's houses (including Lord 
Castlereagh's) in the vicinity. The Westbrooks do not ap- 
pear to have had any connections there.^ We had not 
known previously that Harriet had been there and we fail 
to find any reference to it in her letters or the letters and 
journals of Shelley and Mary. So far as the year 1815 is con- 
cerned, the few references we have to Harriet in Mary 
Shelley's Journal (in January and April) seem to indicate 
that she is in London. The Edgware Road route, however, 
as shown on coaching maps of the time, began at the north- 
east corner of Hyde Park just a few streets away from the 
Westbrook house on Chapel Street. 

We are unable to identify the lines. The verse, however, 
is so poor and the sentiment in the second stanza so un- 
Shelleyan that they are certainly not by Shelley. 

It is possible that the stanzas represent two poems and 
not one and that they have been copied from some book 
of verse. The probability, however, seems to be that they 
were by Harriet herself and were intended to form one 
poem: the irregularity of the meter and other crudities 
indicate an amateur poet; the fact that Harriet copied 
them into the Notebook must mean that they have some 

2 Miss A. M. Dimbleby, District Librarian, Harrow Public Library, Ken- 
ton, Middlesex, wrote in reply to an inquiry: "I have been unable to find 
that Harriet Westbrook or her family had any connection with Stanmore, 
nor have I ever seen any reference to such a connection with this district." 

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COMMENTARIES 

connection with Shelley. And if we look at them in this 
light they make a certain amount of sense. 

The first stanza, with its "radiant genius" in "wild des- 
pair," could well — to judge his letters to her in the fall of 
1814 — reflect Shelley's moods in some of his interviews 
with Harriet. The second stanza would appear to be a 
pious wish that Shelley might find "peace of mind" in the 
legality of marriage, sanctified both by society ("Earth's 
laws") and by God — that is, in a return to Harriet. 

The implication in the poem seems to be that Harriet 
was at Stanmore sometime in 1815 and that either Shelley 
visited her there or she there wrote down sentiments which 
seemed appropriate to a previous meeting in London. 



Page 168. To Harriet ("Oh Harriet, love like 
mine") 

Richard Garnett, seeing this poem in Dowden's copy- 
book, wrote to him: "I can hardly believe that the lines 
to Harriet dated May 1813, and in her writing, are Shel- 
ley's at all. If they are they must belong to a much earlier 
period." Dowden replied: "I quite agree with you about 
the lines in Harriet's handwriting dated May 1813."^ 

The subject matter, however, indicates that the poem is 
by Shelley, poor though it is. The main problem lies in 
the date. As Harriet dated the previous poem "1815," her 
May 1813 date, at the top of the poem, must be intended 
as a date of composition, not the date on which it was 
copied into the Notebook. But we also find, at the bottom, 
the notation "Cum Elam." Obviously either the date or 
the place is wrong, for neither Shelley nor Harriet was in 

^Letters about Shelley, pp. 122, 123. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Cwm Elan in May 1813. They were, in fact, in London, 
and Harriet was eight months pregnant. 

Shelley, as we have already seen, was at Cwm Elan (near 
Rhayader in Wales) on only two occasions: once, in the 
summer of 1811, without Harriet, and again in June 1812 
with her; in May 1812 they were at Nantgwillt, but a mile 
and a half away from Cwm Elan, and doubtless they visited 
Cwm Elan. The style and sentiment of the poem, however, 
are not at all in accord with the poetry Shelley was writing 
at that time, for instance, "The Retrospect: Cwm Elan." 
Nor are the sentiments in general accord with Shelley's 
relationship with Harriet in 1812. They are, however, in 
accord with that relationship in the early summer of 1811 
when Shelley was at Cwm Elan. (That they were to Harriet 
Westbrook and not Harriet Grove is shown by the ref- 
erence to "my Harriet.")^ 

As for the subject matter of the poem, let us compare 
its sentiments with those in the letter to Hogg from Cwm 
Elan on August 3, 1811, in which Shelley tells of his plans 
for elopement: "Her father has persecuted her in a most 
horrible way, & endeavours to compel her to go to school, 
... I set off for London on Monday. ... I advised her to 
resist . . she wrote to say that resistance was useless, but 
that she would fly with me, & threw herself on my pro- 
tection. — . . . Gratitude & admiration all demand that I 
should love her forever."^ 

The "hour which tears thee from me" (line 29) could 
be the hour of Harriet's forced return to school. (There 
was no threat to take her away from Shelley in 1812.) "My 
ever dear Harriet to save" (line 18) could refer to Shelley's 
leaving for London to rescue her from her persecution. 
And the sentiment of "eternal affection" (line 17) which 

*See commentary to "To November," above, p. 187. 
^Shelley and his Circle, II, 856. 

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COMMENTARIES 

runs through the poem is that of the "love her forever' of 
the letter. The indications of previous suicidal tendencies 
in lines 25-8 are also, as we have seen, paralleled in Shel- 
ley's poems written at Cwm Elan in 1811. 

If, then, the poem was composed at Cwm Elan, it was 
composed either late in July or in the first few days of 
August 1811 (Shelley left for London on August 5), and 
sent to Harriet by mail, either in the text of a letter (as 
with poems in letters to Hogg and Elizabeth Hitchener) 
or as a verse letter. The final line, "Adieu, my love; good 
night," sounds like the close of a letter; for Shelley fre- 
quently closed his early letters to Hogg with "adieu." If, 
then, the poem was written rapidly and spontaneously in 
a state of agitation and mailed off immediately to Harriet, 
we may have an explanation for some of its irregularities 
and the poor quality of the verse. Other irregularities 
might have arisen from Harriet's attempts to decipher a 
messy manuscript full of Shelley's typical first-draft can- 
cellations and interlineations. 

If, however, the poem was written in July or early 
August 1811, why did Harriet put the date "May 1813" 
at the top? We can but guess. We might note, however, 
that the date comes before the title. It is possible that 
Harriet wrote in this date and intended to follow it with 
some other poem and then forgot to cancel the date. Or 
this date may have been mistakenly placed at the top of 
whatever manuscript she was copying from and she copied 
it mechanically. Whatever the explanation, the poem was 
certainly not written in May 1813. 

There is one other possibility we might consider. Let 
us assume that the notation "Cum Elam" is wrong and 
the date partially right. Harriet may have miscopied 1811 
as 1813, and, if in an agitated state, not seen her error. In 
this case the poem could have been written in May 1811. 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Shelley left Harriet and London on May lo and was in 
Sussex for the rest of the month.^ True, we do not know 
whether Shelley in May was as involved with Harriet as 
this poem would suggest, but we do not know that he was 
not. His letters to Hogg in April and May contain mysteri- 
ous hints of romance, but it is difficult to decide how 
seriously these are to be taken. 

One can only assume — on this hypothesis — that Har- 
riet herself added "Cum Elam" and did not find it on the 
manuscript from which she was copying. She could — again 
assuming she was in an agitated state, similar perhaps to 
that indicated in her suicide letter — have written in 
"Cum Elam," thinking that that was where the poem had 
come from. (Shelley apparently sent her several letters 
from Cwm Elan.) 

Whether the poem was written in May or later in the 
summer, it indicates that Shelley was emotionally more 
deeply involved with Harriet in the period before the 
elopement than we would gather from his letters to Hogg 
or Elizabeth Hitchener. 



Page lyo. Late was the night 

This is a puzzling poem. It is so poor in parts that it is 
hard to believe that it is by Shelley. Even in the worst 
of the "Victor and Cazire" Original Poetry we find nothing 
so incoherent or technically inept as, for instance, the 
second stanza. On the other hand, some of the lines are 
not bad (line 3, for example), and the subject matter — 
the betrayed and wandering girl — is similar to "Cold are 
the blasts" and a song in Original Poetry: 

^Shelley and his Circle, II, 783. 

(304) 



COMMENTARIES 

See! o'er yon rocky height, 

Dim mists are flying — 
See by the moon's pale light. 

Poor Laura's dying! 

One possible explanation is that this was a very early 
poem by Shelley, which Harriet found in a corrupt text, 
and that she copied it while in a state of agitation similar 
to that discernible in her suicide letter. Although Harriet's 
handwriting is usually neat, here it is almost illegible in 
places, and there are copying errors of a kind we do not 
find in the other poems. As the date indicates, the poem 
was copied in 1815, At some point in 1815 Harriet may 
have begun to realize that Shelley would never come back 
to her, and felt that the poem reflected her own abandoned 
condition, even to the dread of a "watery grave" (line 19). 
Perhaps she copied the poem into the book so that she 
might show it to Shelley when he visited her. 

"Teinted" in line 2 is a variant spelling of "tainted" 
in its sense of "colored." 



Page lyi. To St Irvyne 

On April 17, 1810, Harriet Grove, then visiting the Shel- 
ley's at Field Place with her family, recorded in her diary: 
"Still more odd. Walked to Horsham saw the Old House 
St Irvyne had a long conversation but more perplexed 
than ever walked in the evening to Strood by moon- 
light."^ 

Her brother Charles, some forty-seven years later, also 
remembered the occasion: 

''Shelley and his Circle, II, 575. (For the "Old House," see Plate VIII.) 

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THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I did not meet Bysshe again after that till I was fifteen, 
the year I left the navy, and then I went to Field Place 
with my father, mother, Charlotte, and Harriet. Bysshe 
was there, having just left Eton, and his sister, Elizabeth. 
Bysshe was at that time more attached to my sister Harriet 
than I can express, and I recollect well the moonlight 
walks we four had at Strode, and also at St. Irving's; that, 
I think, was the name of the place, then the Duke of Nor- 
folk's, at Horsham. (St. Irving's Hills, a beautiful place, 
on the right-hand side as you go from Horsham to Field 
Place, laid out by the famous Capability Brown, and full 
of magnificent forest trees, waterfalls, and rustic seats).^ 

Such, then, was St. Irvyne and such the memorable walks. 
At first glance one might think that the poem "To St 
Irvyne" referred to these walks, but examination indicates 
that it was written earlier and must refer to another visit. 
Harriet, one might gather from references in her 1809 
diary entries, had been at Field Place in August 1808. If 
we put this together with the "August Moon" (line 7) of 
the poem and with the fact that Shelley in a poem pub- 
lished in the fall of 1810 lamented that "two years of 
speechless bliss are gone,"^ it seems probable that the 
romance began in August 1808 and that it was associated 
with a visit to the ruins at St. Irvyne in the moonlight. The 
later visits, in April 1810, with Charles and Elizabeth, 
perhaps had a significance for Shelley and Harriet that 
their companions did not know. 



8 Charles Grove to Hellen Shelley, Februar)' 16, 1857, Hogg, Shelley, II, 
154-5. The parenthetical comment on St. Irving's Hills is presumably by 
Hellen Shelley. In this regard we might note the following in Paterson's 
Roads (i8ii): "Broadbridge Heath. On /, Hill Place, Lady Irwin: and on r. 
Field Place, Tim. Shelley, Esq.; and beyond it, Strood, John Commerell, 
Esq." The Hills estate was purchased from Lady Irvine by the Duke of 
Norfolk in two transactions, one in 1788, one in 1810-1811. (See William 
Albery, A Parliamentary History of Horsham, 1295-1885 [Horsham, 1926], 
pp. 252-3. 

^ "Melody to a Scene of Former Times." 



(306) 



COMMENTARIES 

This hypothesis is also supported by what evidence we 
have for dating the poem, (The date of February 28, 1805, 
at the top cannot be the date of composition, for Shelley 
was only twelve in February 1805 and hardly likely to 
be looking back on a romance of the previous summer.) On 
April 22, 1810, Shelley sent his friend Edward Fergus 
Graham a poem which is rather like "To St Irvyne," In it 
a "youth with darkened brow" near St. Irvyne's "tower" 
is mourning his "long-lost love." Harriet Grove had arrived 
at Field Place on April 16 and left on April 18. Perhaps 
the poem was evoked by her leaving, or perhaps it was 
an earlier poem Shelley included in his letter, as he did 
with poems in letters to Hogg. 

When in the fall of 1810 Shelley published his novel 
5^. Irvyne, written in the main between the fall of 1809 
and the spring of 1810, he included in it some of the stanzas 
of the poem sent on April 22 to Graham. Then in Original 
Poetry we find a song, dated April 1810, which is clearly 
on the same subject: 

Then ! dearest farewell. 

You and I love, may ne'er meet again; 

These woods and these meadows can tell 
How soft and how sweet was the strain. 

The name Harriet in the first line would fit the meter. 
Presumably this poem was inspired by Harriet's leaving 
Field Place on April 18. Its "ne'er meet again," however, 
seems curious in view of the fact that Shelley saw Harriet 
again in London on April 25. Perhaps he did not know 
that this would happen when he wrote the poem. Harriet 
gives no indication in her diary entry on leaving Field 
Place that she expected to see Shelley in London.^ 
Shelley, then, was writing poems of the same type as 

'^Shelley and his Circle, II, 576. 

(307) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

"To St Irvyne" in the spring of 1810. "To St Irvyne," 
however, was not written in the spring; otherwise Shelley 
would hardly speak of the "winter winds" (line 1) roar- 
ing around St. Irvyne's turrets. It would seem that it was 
written in the preceding winter. 

If Shelley was writing poems in the winter of 1809-1810 
and the spring of 1810 bemoaning his separation from 
Harriet Grove and engaging in death fantasies (both in 
"To St Irvyne" and in the poem sent to Graham on April 
22), they must have had their orgin in the crisis of the fall 
of 1809. That "To St Irvyne" was part of this complex is 
indicated also by its tone, which is closer to that of other 
1809 poems than to the deeper emotions stirred up the 
following year, for instance, in "Melody to a Scene of 
Former Times." 

If the poem was written in the winter of 1809-1810, what 
is the meaning of the date "Feb'"y 28*^ 1805" which Harriet 
Shelley has placed in front of the title and which she must 
have found in the manuscript from which she was copy- 
ing? Dowden suggested that this date might "refer to some 
incident of February in that year, which might be viewed 
as a starting-point in the course of their love."^ The in- 
dication, however, as we have seen, is that although Shel- 
ley and Harriet had known each other previously, the 
romance did not begin until the summer of 1808. Could 
the date be that of the first meeting of Shelley and Harriet 
Grove? Charles Grove begins the letter to Hellen Shelley 
quoted above as follows: 

It is very difficult, after so long a time, to remember 
with accuracy events which occurred so long ago. The 
first time I ever saw Bysshe was when I was at Harrow. I 
was nine years old; my brother George, ten. We took him 
up to Brentford, where he was at school, at Dr. Green- 

2 Dowden, Shelley, I, 48. 

(308) 



COMMENTARIES 



law's; a servant of my father's taking care of us all. He 
accompanied us to Feme, and spent the Easter holidays 
there.3 

The "Easter holidays" normally began in the middle of 
February and ran for some eight weeks; according to Roger 
Ingpen, Charles Grove was born in 1794, but he does not 
give the month.^ The "Easter holidays" referred to, then, 
would be either those of 1803 or 1804. But, as Grove states 
that he was not sure of his accuracy in surveying events 
of some fifty years before, it may be that this visit took place 
in 1805. 



Material on pastedoiun endpapers, leaf 1, verso, 
and leaf 140 (final leaf), verso 

This material is noted in the Bibliographical Description 
(page 329). 

The front pastedown endpaper contains the name 
"lanthe E Esdaile" near the top. Presumably this is lanthe's 
signature (we have no other specimens of her handwrit- 
ing at our disposal) and indicates that she owned the book. 
The uncertain letters (in an unknown hand) "GE — GY" 
on the verso of the first leaf are puzzling. The "E" might 
stand for "Esdaile." 

On the final leaf Shelley made a notation on the top 

line — "Vol. 7, 286. Gibbon." This must refer to The 

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 

which Shelley also refers to in his Notes to Queen Mab 

(note to III, 189: "Even love is sold," a note on marriage 

3 Hogg, Shelley, II, 154. 

* The Journal of Harriet Grove for the Years i8og-i8io, ed. Roger Ingpen 
(London, 1932), p. viii. 

(309) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

and sex). He then added a footnote to the note: "The first 
Christian emperor made a law by which seduction was 
punished with death: if the female pleaded her own con- 
sent, she also was punished with death; if the parents en- 
deavoured to screen the criminals, they were banished 
and their estates confiscated; the slaves who might be ac- 
cessory were burned alive, or forced to swallow melted 
lead. The very offspring of an illegal love were involved 
in the consequences of the sentence. — Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall, e^c, vol. ii. page 210. See also, for the hatred of 
the primitive Christians to love and even marriage, page 
269." 

We have been unable to find an edition of the Decline 
and Fall in which the passage Shelley is paraphrasing ap- 
pears on page 210 of Volume II. In the Dublin edition of 
1788, however, we find the passage on pages 208-9; and 
his reference to the primitive Christians' hatred of mar- 
riage on pages 266-7. This edition, then, seems to run 
about two pages behind the one that Shelley was using, 
so that we would expect to find his reference to page 286 
of Volume VII some two pages earlier. And this is what 
we do find. Although there seems to be nothing on page 
286 that held special interest for Shelley, on page 284 we 
find a comment that would have interested him very much 
— on "Mazdak, who asserted the community of women 
and the equality of mankind." This sounds as though the 
"Vol. 7. 286" reference was made when the Queen Mab 
note on marriage and sex was being written, and indicates 
that Shelley had the Esdaile Notebook in his possession 
while he was working on the Notes to Queen Mab. As we 
have seen, Shelley wrote to Hookham on February 19, 
1813: "Queen Mab is finished and transcribed. I am now 
preparing the Notes which shall be long and philosophical. 
You will recieve [5/c] it with the other poems." 

(310) 



COMMENTARIES 

The notation "4/" on the back pastedown endpaper 
indicates that the Notebook cost four shillings. This seems 
high. Possibly they were Irish shillings. Hogg tells us that 
in 1813 he found Irish currency in an unstable condition.^ 

5 Hogg, Shelley, I, 409-10. 



(3i>) 



t3>^^^iS'^lS'^lS'^tS>^!S>^^ 



Publication History 



ALTHOUGH it might at first seem a simple matter to de- 
L termine how many lines from the Esdaile Notebook 
have been previously published, it turns out to be rather 
complex. The problem arises from the fact that some of 
the poems have been published from other sources and 
these texts often differ from the Notebook text, so that 
we cannot always simply say that a certain line has or has 
not been published. Before we discuss this question, how- 
ever, let us take up the material published from the Esdaile 
Notebook text itself. Here there are no particular dif- 
ficulties and we can make an exact estimate. 

The largest number of lines published from the Note- 
book are those that first appeared in Edward Dowden's 
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1886,^ and thereafter 
in editions of Shelley's poetry. Dowden, as we have noted, 
also copied out the whole Notebook and showed this copy 

iDowden (Shelley, I, viii) makes acknowledgment as follows: "My debt 
is great to Shelley's grandsons, Charles E. J. Esdaile, Esq., and the Rev. 
W. Esdaile. Mr. Charles Esdaile lent me the manuscript volume of unpub- 
lished poetry by Shelley, of which in its proper place I have given an ac- 
count; and he permitted me to print for the first time all such poems or 
passages of poems as seemed to me of special biographical interest. The 
Rev. W. Esdaile enabled me to correct some errors of preceding biogra- 
phers." Dowden's main comments on the Notebook will be found on pages 
345-9. For an examination of the Notebook based on Dowden and other 
published information, see Cameron, The Young Shelley, pp. 233-8, 379-85. 

(313) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

to Richard Garnett.^ He did not, however, attempt to pub- 
lish any poems in addition to those which he was given 
permission to publish by Charles Edward Jeffries Esdaile, 
in whose possession the Notebook then was. Dowden's copy 
remained in the hands of his family after his death. 

The year following the publication of Dowden's life 
of Shelley, one poem, "The wandering Jew's soliloquy," 
was published by Bertram Dobell in an appendix to his 
Shelley Society edition of Shelley's The Wandering Jew.^ 
The fourth stanza of Shelley's translation of "The Mar- 
seillaise" was, as we have seen, published (in 1877 by H. B. 
Forman) from a text in a letter from Shelley to Edward 
Fergus Graham.^ The whole poem, from the Esdaile Note- 
book text, was published in 1910 by Andre Koszul in an 
appendix to his book La Jeunesse de Shelley.^ 

Roger Ingpen, in editing Shelley's poems for Complete 
Works (1926-1930), republished the poems previously pub- 
lished by Dowden, Dobell, and Koszul, but he was not per- 
mitted to publish any others from the Esdaile Notebook. 
He was, however, allowed to check the texts of those 
already published.^ 

Nothing further was published from the Notebook until 
1956 when Neville Rogers printed 73 lines in his book 
Shelley at Work J And in 1962, 8 lines were published by 
Louise S. Boas in her biography of Harriet Shelley.^ 

2 See above, pp. 32, 175-6. 

3 The Shelley Society Publications, Second Series, No. 12 (London, 1887), 
pp. 69-70. 

* See above, p. 270. 

5 Pp. 401-4. 

® Shelley, Complete Works, III, [v] ("Editor's Preface"), 315. To one 
poem, however, "A Dialogue," Ingpen added two lines from the Esdaile 
Notebook. Ingpen's texts for these poems are sometimes eclectic and his 
collations unreliable. 

^Oxford, pp. 28, 29, 91-2, 121, 171. See also p. viii. 

^Harriet Shelley, Five Long Years (London, New York, Toronto), pp. 
179-80. 

(314) 



PUBLICATION HISTORY 

In addition to the poetry, the Notebook contains prose 
— one Advertisement and ten footnotes. Two of the foot- 
notes have been published in full and one in part;^ the 
advertisement is unpublished. 

In the first of the tables below we present the poems and 
lines of poetry published from the Esdaile Notebook, 
with abbreviated titles for the works in which they appear. 

Let us now consider the problem of the poems published 
from sources other than the Esdaile Notebook (Table 
II). There are four of these sources: poems in letters; 
manuscripts given to T. J. Hogg; manuscripts formerly 
owned by Sir Percy Florence Shelley (Boscombe MSS); 
and poems published by Shelley himself (in Queen Mab 
and Alastor). The poems in these manuscripts were 
published in the following works: Hogg's life of Shelley 
(1858); the Rossetti (1870) and Forman, IV (1877), editions 
of Shelley's poetry; Shelley, Complete Works (1926-1930); 
and Shelley and his Circle (1961). The poems in Complete 
Works are sometimes (as with the Hogg texts) taken from 
the printed text, sometimes (as with the Hitchener letters) 
directly from the manuscripts. All the poems in Shelley 
and his Circle are taken directly from the manuscripts. If 
a poem appears in a letter. Complete Works will include 
it both among the letters and among the poems. In Table 
II the reference is to the latter. 

Although the number of lines previously published 
given in Table I may be taken as exact, those in Table II, 
as we have indicated, present more difficulty. The nature 
of the problem can best be shown by an example. Let us 
look at the first poem listed, the dedicatory poem "To 
Harriet ('Whose is the love')." This poem is listed as pub- 
lished — in the Queen Mab volume, where it also serves as 
a dedication. But actually only some of the lines are the 

9 Dowden, Shelley, I, 347; Rogers, Shelley at Work, pp. 28, 29. 

(315) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

same in both versions. For instance, stanza two runs as 
follows in the Esdaile Notebook: 

Whose looks gave grace to the majestic theme, 
The sacred, free and fearless theme of truth? 
Whose form did I gaze fondly on 
And love mankind the more? 

In Queen Mab these lines run: 

Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul 
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow? 

Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on, 

And loved mankind the more? 

It would seem at first that we should record the first two 
lines as unpublished because they differ almost completely 
from the Queen Mab version. But, then, what is to be 
done about the next two lines, which differ only in a word 
or two? We cannot say flatly that they are either unpub- 
lished or published. This problem continues throughout. 
It seems impossible to construct a satisfactory yardstick. 
A purist in such matters might argue that if a line varied 
by only one word from a previous text, it was unpublished, 
and certainly a case can be made for such an argument. 
But the solution we have favored is that of recording in 
our tables as published in full all poems previously pub- 
lished and all their lines — even though there are variants 
in some lines — on the grounds that the poem as a whole 
has been published and its essential meaning is the same 
in both versions. We have, however, collated these poems 
and totaled the lines which show variants in words or 
phrasing. (One poem, "Cold are the blasts," has been 
published in two texts. Lines which these texts have in 
common have been counted only once.) This total (225 
lines) the reader may deduct or not as he wishes from the 
grand total of published lines. 

(3i6) 



PUBLICATION HISTORY 

One special problem needs to be noted, namely, that 
some lines from two poems — "To Harriet ('It is not 
blasphemy')" and "Translation of The Marsellois Hymn" 
— have been published both from the Esdaile Notebook 
and from other sources. These lines, totaling 30, we have 
not counted twice, but in the Table I total only. In Table 
II they are placed within brackets. 

In Table II we list for each set of lines the work in 
which it was first published and a reference to the standard 
edition (Complete Works, here abbreviated further to 
Works). For the texts first published in 1858 by T. J. Hogg 
in his life of Shelley ("Hogg"), we also refer to Shelley and 
his Circle, as the texts in this work were taken from the 
manuscripts and differ in some respects from Hogg's pub- 
lished transcripts. 

Table III is the reverse of Tables I and II, namely, a list 
of the lines previously unpublished. 

Some of the main conclusions indicated by the tables 
may be summarized as follows: 

1. Of the 58 poems in the Esdaile Notebook, 9 have 
been published in full from the Notebook. Another 6 
have been published in full from texts other than the 
Notebook. 

2. Of the 2925 lines of poetry in the Esdaile Notebook, 
511 have been published from the Notebook. Another 
553 have been published from other sources; of these, 225 
lines differ in wording, in one degree or another, from the 
corresponding lines in the Esdaile Notebook. If we count 
these 225 lines as previously published, we arrive at a 
total of 1064 lines previously published and 1861 lines 
previously unpublished. If we do not count these 225 lines 
as previously published, we get a total of 839 previously 
published and 2086 previously unpublished. 



(317) 



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^iS-^tS-^iS'O^OiS'^&O&O 



Bibliographical Description 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

HOLOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT, 1 83 pagcs, in notebook of 140 
leaves (7.1 X 4.410.) — including stubs of two torn- 
out leaves — unnumbered, ruled (22 rules to page), half- 
bound in original red roan and marbled boards (7.3 X 4.8 
in.). 

Wove paper. 

Contents: pastedown endpaper: "lanthe E Esdaile"; leaf 
1, recto, blank, verso: "[?]GE — [?]GY"; leaves 2 and 3 
blank; leaf 4, recto, writing in Shelley's and Harriet Shel- 
ley's hand, verso, blank; leaf 5, recto, to leaf 92, recto, writ- 
ing in Shelley's hand (leaves 78 and 79 torn out, stubs 
remaining, with traces of writing); leaf 92, verso, to leaf 97, 
recto, writing in Harriet Shelley's hand (leaf 93, verso, 
blank); leaf 97, verso, to leaf 140, recto, blank; leaf 140, 
verso: "Vol. 7. 286. Gibbon" (in Shelley's hand); pastedown 
endpaper: "4/" (in pencil).^ 

^ The following page numbers appear in ink in Shelley's hand: "104" 
(leaf 56, verso); "127" (leaf 68, recto); "134" (leaf 73, verso); "158" (leaf 
84, verso); "167" (leaf 90, recto). The following page numbers appear in 
pencil in an unknown hand: "48" (leaf 28, recto); "50" (leaf 29, recto); 
"70" (leaf 39, recto); "90" (leaf 49, recto); "100" (leaf 54, recto); "150" (leaf 
81, verso). 



(329) 



^^C!S'<^tS><y^OiS-Oi3'Oi3'0^ 



Textual Notes 



As I have noted in the Introduction, the text presented, 
L although (hopefully) exact, is not literal. I shall now 
indicate in what ways we have departed from the manu- 
script, first in regard to words, and then in regard to punc- 
tuation, 

TEXTUAL CHANGES INVOLVING WORDS 

1. Titles. When Shelley has put a title on a poem we 
have used it, unless it is simply a date. Otherwise we have 
used the first line or the first phrase as a title, with two 
exceptions (see page 354 below). All dates given below 
titles are Shelley's. 

2. Abbreviations and ampersands. Abbreviations, such 
as "cd" for "could," have been written out and amper- 
sands given as "and" without indication in the notes. 

3. Misspellings and slips of the pen are recorded in the 
notes and corrected in the text. 

4. Apostrophes and hyphens have been supplied as 
needed in the text and are recorded in the notes only if 
meaning is involved (e.g., if an apostrophe could indicate 
either a singular or a plural possessive). If Shelley's apos- 
trophes or hyphens have been deleted, this is recorded. 

5. Capital letters are supplied as needed and recorded 

(331) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

in the notes. (Shelley had a habit of using a period and then 
beginning his next sentence with a small letter.) 

6. Canceled words are not given in the text but are re- 
corded in the notes. If a whole line is canceled, however, 
it is given in the text within brackets. Sometimes Shelley 
canceled a word by strokes of the pen, sometimes by smudg- 
ing it out with his finger. We note smudged-out words be- 
cause they may indicate haste in copying or composition. 

7. Interlineations are given on line level in the text but 
recorded as interlineations in the notes. 

8. Illegible words or letters are shown by brackets, the 
spacing of which roughly indicates the number of illegible 
letters. 

It should, therefore, be possible from these notes to re- 
construct Shelley's text in regard to the actual wording, 
with the exception of abbreviations, ampersands, aspos- 
trophes, and hyphens. 

CHANGES INVOLVING PUNCTUATION 

1 . Commas, periods, and semicolons have been added as 
needed and not recorded in the notes unless the addition 
could affect the sense. (See, for instance, "To Mary I," 
line 2.) If, however, Shelley's own commas, periods, or semi- 
colons have been deleted or changed, this fact is recorded. 

2. Colons, question marks, exclamation marks, dashes, 
quotation marks, and two or more dots. If these have been 
supplied, the addition is recorded in the notes by indicat- 
ing Shelley's own punctuation or lack of it. If Shelley's 
colons, etc., have been deleted or changed, this fact is re- 
corded. Thus any colons, etc., which are in the text and 
not recorded in the notes may be taken to be Shelley's. 
Shelley's underlinings in the text are shown by italics. 

It should, therefore, be possible to reconstruct from the 

(332) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

notes the more significant elements of Shelley's original 
punctuation. Commas, periods, and semicolons, as we have 
seen, he apparently regarded either as routine and not 
worth including systematically, or, in a manuscript in- 
tended for publication, as details to be left up to an editor. 
If most of these commas, etc., were deleted in the present 
text, the result would not be very different from the orig- 
inal. If Shelley's punctuation were thus reconstructed, it 
might at first seem to be merely eccentric, but it represents 
a combination of punctuation practices current in Shelley's 
day and Shelley's own special use of punctuation to convey 
mood and sense rather than grammatical logic. For in- 
stance, Shelley will sometimes put an exclamation point 
where the logic of the sentence demands a question mark, 
if the general content and mood call for an exclamation 
point. In passages in which the syntax is complex he will 
put in colons or dashes as general guide lines to his thought. 
Shelley, in fact, seems to have been getting at a point which 
has never been properly solved, namely, that conventional 
punctuation, although adequate for the needs of exposi- 
tory prose, often fails to serve the more subtle patterns of 
poetry. We have retained Shelley's punctuation as much as 
possible, and indicated any major deviations from it, but 
our main criterion has been that of intelligibility. (The 
above rules apply also to the poems in Harriet Shelley's 
hand.) 

The text which has resulted from these editorial methods 
will not, of course, prove satisfying to the textual scholar. 
Hope, however, is on the horizon. When these poems and 
their notes are reprinted in Shelley and his Circle, the text 
will, in accordance with the principles laid down in that 
work, give a "close approximation of the manuscript, re- 
taining the spelling, punctuation, and so on of the orig- 
inal." 

(333) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

One matter which falls under neither word change nor 
punctuation change is that of indicators for footnotes. Shel- 
ley usually put an X or a cross in the text and a similar 
mark below, but sometimes he failed to do so. We have 
used asterisks uniformly. 

Indentions follow Shelley's intent insofar as it can be 
determined. Sometimes he indented in the early stanzas 
of a poem and not in the later. In such cases we have in- 
dented throughout, following the pattern he has set. 

References to Dowden's readings are to his copybook 
(now in The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library). Shelley's own 
line counts have been indicated within brackets. 

A few bibliographical details have been commented on 
if they seemed helpful — for instance, on ink shading as in- 
dicating revision — but no attempt has been made in this 
edition to present systematic bibliographical descriptions. 



Page 37. TO HARRIET ("Whose is the Love") 

Title. "To Harriet" is in Harriet Shelley's hand. (See 

Plate III.) 
I. 5. praise: There is a small curved stroke between a. and i. 
I. p. thine. — 

Page 38. A SABBATH WALK 

Heading. There is a short rule below Poems. 
/. 5. labyrinth: labyrith 
1. 6. truth 

I. 20. shrine: shine. For a similar type of error in transcrip- 
tion, see line 46. 
I. 2g. Its: Shelley began to write This or The and then 



(334) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

wrote It through Th and changed the following half- 
formed e or i into s. 
I. 40. prejudice: j written through g 

/. 46. living: Iving 

I. ^g. hireling: hirelng 

I. 57. melody. The: melody, the 

I. 52. pervadeth, 

I. 55. its: it's; apostrophe so used in Shelley's day 

Page 40. THE CRISIS 

/. 2. Falshood: an early spelling, recorded in the NED 

its: it's 
I. 5. Tyranny: Tyrranny 
I. p. Monarchs: Monachs 
I. ig. day star 

Page 41. PASSION 

Subtitle. The parenthesis of the subtitle is not completed. 
The space between the and the period measures 1.2 
inches. 

/. J. conceal: originally written concel and corrected in 
darker ink by changing the final / into an a and add- 
ing / 

/. 6. lawyer: written over }curat, and blotted 

/. 8. no. the 

I. 16. wretch: wreth 

I. 18. willed: The ed is in a much darker ink and slightly 
apart from the final / of will. See line 30 below. Shelley 
must at some time have checked over this poem after 
having copied it. 

/. 23. the is written through some smudged-out letters, 
possibly sp. 

( 335 ) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

/. 2^. courage! 

I. 50. weird: wierd; originally written grey, which was can- 
celed, and wierd written above it; wierd is in the same 
dark ink as ed of willed in line 18. 

/. 57. Falshood's: see note on "The Crisis," line 2. 

Page 43. TO HARRIET ("Never, O never") 

1. 1. O: o 

I. 10. The parallel line above (line 4) was left iinpunctu- 
ated by Shelley. We have punctuated it conventionally 
in the thought that Shelley wished special emphasis 
only in the last line of the stanza. A short rule appears 
below this line, separating the two stanzas. 

/. 12. loveheaming 

Page 44. FALSHOOD AND VICE 

Title. Falshood: See "The Crisis," line 2. There is a short 

rule below the title. 
/. I. their: thier. Shelley often had trouble with ei and ie. 
Sometimes it is difficult to tell which he intended. 
Here the ie is clear. 
/. 4. their: thier 

veins: Shelley wrote viens, then put a dot over the e. 
I. 6. frenzied: frienzied 

I. 7. with: text in Notes to Queen Mab reads "wields" 
1. 14. toil'd: The / and the ascender of the d are in a very 

dark ink. See "Passion," line 18; Shelley apparently 

corrected the text of a number of these poems at one 

time. See also line 84. 
/. 50. more, this 
I. ^6. o'er: written through ?o/ 

(336) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

/. 67. sated: sat crossed through with three short diagonal 
strokes but no other letters or word substituted 

/. y$. extacies: obsolete form 

//. 81-82. These lines are canceled in the Notebook. 

/. 84. in: originally with; canceled and corrected in very 
dark ink 

/. 8y. all. without 

I. pi. well. — the 

I. pp. frenzied: frienzied 

I. loy. boots. — thy 

[Below line 110, Shelley's line count: 256] 

Page 48. TO THE EMPERORS OF RUSSIA AND 
AUSTRIA 

Title. Austerlitz: austrelitz. Shelley apparently had trouble 
with the spelling of the word. He first wrote austrr, 
then hesitated, and made a stroke between rr. There 
is a short rule below the title. 

7. deep 

10. rest. 

16. whistling: whilstling 

I p. secure. — on 

30. form 

55. where: possibly when. It is not always possible to dis- 
tinguish Shelley's when from where. 

^8. beneath: 

42. thou 

4^. fears, be 
[Below line 50, Shelley's line count: ^06] 

Page 50. TO NOVEMBER 

Title. There is a cross following the title which perhaps 
indicates that Shelley intended to add a footnote. 

(337) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

/. 75. thy rage: the rage. Shelley's eye perhaps jumped 

ahead to the of the Heaven. 
I. ip. may. the 
I. 22. manymingling 
I. 27. Month! 

I. 28. of written through at 
I. 2p. nothings 
I. 50. won. 
[Below line 30, Shelley's line count: 556] 

Page 52. WRITTEN ON A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN 
SPRING 

Title. There is a short rule below the title. 

/. 2. is written through in 

I. 5. woe worn 

I. 8. its: it 

I. g. recurs 

[Below line 18, Shelley's line count: 55^ (slightly smudged)] 

Page 53. ON LEAVING LONDON FOR WALES 

/. 10. full: Dowden first transcribed "full" then interlin- 
eated "free(?)." On the opposite page he comments: "I 
incline to free," and below the comment is a penciled 
notation: "And I., R. G.," i.e., Richard Garnett. 
There is one stroke too many for free but the word 
could be full if Shelley made his /'s short, something 
which he occasionally did. Full also makes better sense, 
especially in view of burdened in the next line. 

/. 22. tightening: tightning 
steel 

I. 2']. In a much darker ink and thinner penpoint. So, too, 
perhaps, in line 19, the / of Hail and the dot over the 
i of wind, and a few other letters in other lines. Pre- 

(338) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

sumably line 27 was added later and Shelley might 
have touched up the rest of the stanza at the same time, 
Dowden comments: "This line in fresher ink and a 
handwriting of a different date — evidently filling up 
a line that had been left blank." 

/. ^6. lowers: Dowden comments: "lowers might be towers 
(but t not crossed)." Towers is possible but loivers 
seems more likely. Shelley's initial i's and /'s are some- 
times rather similar. 
all 

I. 5p. spirit breathing 

I. 4}. Reason: R written through r 

/. 44. unfurled 

1.48. pert: Dowden comments: "pert = ?past or pert or 
great." The word, however, seems quite clearly to be 
pert. 

I. ^8. with: The t and h are jammed together into one 
composite letter and the word runs on into the. 

I. 66. light: 

I. 68. fear, 

I. 6p. Their: Thier 

[Below line 72, Shelley's line count: 42'j (last number 
blotted)] 

Page 56. A WINTER'S DAY 

/. 2. reviving: reving with vi interlineated 

year 
1.8. 0:o 
I. II. ivhirlwinds. 
I. 14. endure 
I. 75. bloom written through prim. Shelley's eye must have 

caught prime on the next line as he copied. 
/. 20. doom 

(339) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

/. 27. alone 

I. 52. pulses 

[Below line 34, Shelley's line count: 46i'\ 

Page 58. TO LIBERTY 

I. II. Say. 
1. 14. not 
1. 18. Sees Paradise written through Yet bravely; see line 

20 
I. 20. true 
I. 25. shall: sha written through wi 

Revenge!: Rev written at margin, enge! written 

above. 
I. 57. employer: first written employers, then s canceled 
/. 57. planned, which 
I. 42. ye 
[Below line 50, Shelley's line count: 5/j] 

Page 60. ON ROBERT EMMET'S TOMB 

Title. There is a short rule below the title. 

/. 4. shrine: shine 

I. 14. heart: 

I. 16. depart 

I. 18. There is a large X in the right-hand margin follow- 
ing the line. Perhaps Shelley intended to add a foot- 
note. 

/. 20. Like the tears: Li corrected from initial Th 

I. 21. Lines 21 and 22 and parts of line 23 are in much 
darker ink, of about the same shade as line 27 of "On 
leaving London for Wales." Perhaps all these lines 
and other corrections in black ink were added at the 
same time. 

( 340 ) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 



/. 2 J. caresst: carest 

I. 25. day beam: second a written over e 

[Below line 28, Shelley's line count: ^46] 



Page 62. A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS 

Subtitle. 181 1 is in a darker ink and was presumably added 

later. 
/. 5. decay: decary 
I. 7. energy 

I. II. Poverty the stain 
I. 20. will. 
I. 25. The A oi And has left a clear blot on the opposite 

page, whereas other equally dark letters in lines below 

have not. Shelley perhaps went back and touched up 

the A before he turned the page. 
I. 28. might'st: mighst 
1.^2. ghastly: an additional stroke between t and / 

eye: 
I. ^4. run 
I. 55. was, 
I. 5p. grieve 
I. 4'j. round 
I. ^6. wing 
I. ^8. sway. 
I. 5p. they 
I. yy. spirit sinking 
I. 84. borne: born 
I. g2. from originally written by, and canceled; then from 

written above by 
I. p^. flowers: fiowfs 

thus, thou 
I. p6. them, the 



(341) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I. loy. to door 

l. no. dead. 

[Below line 120, Shelley's line count: 661] 

Page 67. THE SOLITARY 

Date. 1810: The o has apparently been formed from i. 

I. II. remove 

I. 75. others. 

[Below line 18, Shelley's line count: 6y^'] 

Page 68. THE MONARCH'S FUNERAL 

/. II. crimson: c written through g. Apparently Shelley 

started to write glow. 
I. i^. As written through ?// and blotted 
/. 22. jell: The first / has a very short ascender, giving it 

the appearance of e. 
I. 24. pile 

I. 2p. the: t written through ?if 
I. 50. Gather: A final s has been canceled. 
I. 55. insatiate: first t written through s 
I. ^8. dine 
I. 46. fleeting: Shelley apparently first wrote flelting and 

then drew a curved line to cut the second I a.t e level. 
/. y2. tear. 
I. 75. no. 'tis 
I. 75. People, 
[Below line 76, Shelley's line count: 755] 



(342) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

Page 71. TO THE REPUBLICANS OF NORTH 
AMERICA 

Title, outh Am is written through New Spain, which, ex- 
cept for the N, has been lightly erased and smudged 
out. 

/. p. catch: the tc of catch has been corrected from a final 
it, and the h then added. 

/. i^. Start: ar written through 7ra 

I. 14. groan!. 

I. 2^. O!: o! 

I. 55. bloodless: written through quivering, which has been 
partly erased 

/. 57. Let: written through ?That 

[Below line 50, Shelley's line count: 80^] 

Page 73. WRITTEN AT CWM ELLAN 

1. 14. glen: rocks canceled, and glen written above 

/. 75. tongued: Dowden reads tangled, but this is not a 

possible reading of the letters. The word appears to 

be written tungued. 
[Below line 16, Shelley's line count: 821] 

Page 74. TO DEATH 

/. 8. this 

I. p. When in: first written immediately under Death 

(line 8) then partly erased, and repeated under Thou 

(line 8) 
/. 75. sacrifice: sacrifize 
I. 77. mine 
I. 25. sway 
I. 4^. land 

(343) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I. 48. There is a penciled line below strand. Dowden has a 

note to this line: "Here the printed fragment ends — ." 

Possibly Dowden added the penciled line. 
1. 4^. 'Twere: written through some partly erased and 

rubbed-out letters 
well: The w seems to have been formed from some 

other letters, perhaps th. Dowden suggests Hell as an 

alternate reading. 
/, 52, receives: recieves 
I. ^y. gaze 
1. 64. Not: originally Can; Can crossed out, and Not 

written above 
/. 6^. Can liberate: written through some partly erased 

and rubbed-out words, possibly My Triumph th from 

the next line 
/. 66. shame 
I. 6^. thee 
[Below line 68, Shelley's line count: S8g\ 

Page 77. DARK SPIRIT OF THE DESART RUDE 

Title. No title in manuscript 

/. I. desart: in use in Shelley's day 

I. 5. wood. 

I. 6. jetty musical. The space was left by Shelley as 

though a word were to follow jetty. 
1. 16. day's: d written through partly erased ?f[ ] 
/. i^. By: written through partly erased on 
I. 22. eyeballs 

I. 26. O: o, written through a 
I. 57. their: there 

I. 55. Earth's sweet: written through Natures [ ] 
/. 55. Oak written through }rock 
I. 57. Whose written through [ ] 

(344) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

1.44. And: and; and was first written above That and 
partly erased and smudged; then another clearly 
written and was interlineated. 

[Below line 46, Shelley's line count: 5)55] 

Page 79. THE PALE, THE COLD AND THE 
MOONY SMILE 

Title. No title in manuscript 
/. 14. perceive: percieve 
I. 16. steel 
I. 26. veil: viel 

come 
[Below line 30, Shelley's line count: ^^5] 

Page 81. DEATH-SPURNING ROCKS! 

Title. No title in manuscript 

/. 5. palsied: written through }dread 

I. p. away 

I. II. A: written through The 

I. 12. wonders, on 

1. 14. snares: originally pangs, then canceled, and snares 
written above pangs, snares is written more neatly 
and in a darker ink. It was probably added later. 
lay 

I. 16. tear 

I. 18. of: written through & 

I. 20. veins: viens 

I. 22. shew: written through [ ] 

/. 25. back, the 

I. 2p, Chance 
misery 

I. 50. die 

(345) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page 83. THE TOMBS 

/. 5. thy: the 

I. 6. tombs, am 

I. 7. skulls: sculls 

1. 10. life! 

L 75. love. Shelley, both in these poems and in his early 
letters, often uses a period as a general indication of 
pause. Sometimes, if writing hastily, he will use two 
dots in the same way. He often omits punctuation at 
the end of a line, taking the end itself as a pause. 
Here, for instance, he puts a period after love in the 
middle of the line but no punctuation mark after 
thought at the end. 

/. ip. every: originally written all the, then canceled, and 
every written above, in a lighter ink and more neatly. 
Evidently it w^as added later. 
shape: original final s crossed out 

/. 25. 1020 is written at end of this line, in faint ink, and 
small numerals. 

[Below line 30, Shelley's line coimt: io2y'] 

Page 85. TO HARRIET ("It is not blasphemy") 

/. 77. fibres. 

I. icf. existence, 

I. 26. chill: c corrected from original / 

/. 28. souls, 

I. 5/. its: it's 

I. ^6. supersede: supercede 

I. ^8. me. 

I. 55. fears: fear's 

I. 65. being, if 

(346) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

[At end of line 69, Shelley's line count: /op<5] 

102^ 

I., yo. Fortitude: written through a blurred 7/ 

iop6 

I. 7/. Purity 

[Below line 72, Shelley's line count: iioo] 

Page 88. SONNET: TO HARRIET ON HER BIRTH 
DAY 

Title and subtitle. Sonnet To Harriet 

On her birthday August i. 18 12 

I. I. smile 

I. 2. indexing 

L 5. as on: originally as on followed the first thus; then 
as on was canceled, and a second thus written and fol- 
lowed by a new as on 

I. 7. dyes: changed from dies 

Page 89. SONNET: TO A BALLOON, LADEN WITH 
KNOWLEDGE 

Subtitle, laden: n written through a second e, Knowledge 

underlined 
/. 5. shall: possibly shalt 
I. II. tyrants 

Page 90. SONNET: ON LAUNCHING SOME 
BOTTLES 

Subtitle. Knowledge underlined 
/. 5. ye: y written through w 

stern: Dowden reads stem but the word is clearly 
stern (used as a verb meaning "to steer through"). 
/. 5. deigned: deighned 

(347) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I. 8. blow, 

I. II. on: Dowden reads in, but the o is probably com- 
pressed; on is the more likely reading. 
/. 12. Its: It's 

Page 91. SONNET: ON WAITING FOR A WIND 

Title, the Bristol channel: originally written the channel, 
and Bristol interlineated 
Wales. 

I. 2. Spirit: possibly spirit, the s is about halfway in size 
between a capital and small letter. Shelley occasionally 
forms such initial letters when he seems hesitant on 
how much emphasis to give to a word. 

/. p. sigh, ye 

1. 12. sails 

I. i^. receive. The final e is followed by a slight curl which 
might be a half-formed s. 

[Below line 14, Shelley's line count: 1156'] 

Page 92. TO HARRIET ("Harriet! thy kiss to my soul is 
dear") 

I. 4. a look: a loo smudged; followed by look 

I. 26. its: it's 

[Below line 32, Shelley's line count: 118S] 

Page 94. MARY TO THE SEA-WIND 

1. 1, thee I: second e written through ?n or Pre 

/. 6. heath: health 

I. 7. yet: written through but 

I. g. inhale 

I. 10. kind 

(348) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

/. //. And written through That 

[Below line 16, Shelley's line count: 120^] 

Page 95. A RETROSPECT OF TIMES OF OLD 

/. II. worship, oh 

I. 75. Kings 

I. ly. Death, 

1. 18. the: e written through is 

world: originally word', then / inserted 
/. 20. Death! — .yet 
I. 21. thou'lt: originally written thou wilt, wi canceled and 

apostrophe added. (Opening and closing quotation 

marks have been supplied.) 
/. 22. Dream of fame!: written through }brilliant piles! 

(see line 29) 
I. 2g. lay 
I. 50. fled. 
I. 55. features 
I. 5^. day 

I. 56. steel: stell; stell . . . the 
I. 57. blade 
I. ^^. torrent, the 

stormy: probable reading 
/. 4^. its: it 

I. 4'j. moment! and he dies hark 
I. 50. veil: viel 

hid 
I. 5/. flown written through smudged }glow 
Footnote, that written after record and then canceled 

parallel: parallell 

former 
I. $2. roll: first written rolls, and s canceled 
tide 

(349) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

I. ^4. not: originally nor, r canceled and t inserted 

I. 55. slept!: Shelley first wrote slept, and then added the 

exclamation mark above the comma. 
gone 
I. $6. bone 

I. 61. gorgeous: gorg written over blood 
I. 66. drowned: A d appears to have been inserted before n. 
each: ea written through }to 
moan 
I. 6'j. away 
I. yo. Heroes, 
I. 77. come 

Shelley began to form the X for his footnote after 

come, then smudged it out. 
Footnote. There appears to be an extra pen stroke after the 

first a of Buonaparte. 
I. y2. gloom 
I. 75. die 

I. 8^. better: Dowden reads latter, which is possible. 
[Below line 83, Shelley's line count: i2S'j'] 

Page 98. THE VOYAGE 

Title. Shelley apparently first began to write The }J at 
left-hand margin, then smudged and crossed it out, 
then wrote The }Journey, centered, crossed and 
scratched it out, and wrote The Voyage above it. (See 
Plate IV.) 

Subtitle. Fragment: Fragment. . 

I. 2. Each: E written through ?/ 

puissant: puisant; ant written through smudged-out 
letters 

/. 77. sorrow! 

I. I p. loveliness 

(350) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

I. 27. clash: probable reading; Dowden reads dash, which 
is possible. 
57. mind 
55>. pain 

40. now: written through smudged-out }here 
50. heads; 
6^. atmosphere 
6y. long 

yS. Of is perhaps a transcription error for As. 
8^. Their: Thier with the dot over the e 
p8. hazard, smil'd 
104. it 
loy. power 
108. work 
10^. paths 
Footnote. There is no asterisk in the text but the reference 
is clearly to lines 108-9. 
peculiarly: peculiarely 
engaging, 
possess: posess 
I. 12^. cradled 



1^4. pure: there is an extra stroke to the u. 
141. body, 

i6y. barren: written through smudged } fruitless 

ly^. He was first written on the (blank) line above and 

smudged out. "He struggled" perhaps did not begin a 

new stanza in the manuscript from which Shelley was 

copying. 

/. iy4. But: Shelley apparently began to write a T and 

changed it to B. 
I. 188. forth, the 
I. 208. withered: ed written through a fainter and smaller 

ed }li 
I. 21^. sight 

(35O 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

21^. them: then 

221. Town 

22^. town written through }den 

22']. spot, should 

2^6. their robberies: there robberies 

257. sailor: sailors 

246. him. to 

257. handkerchief: handcherchief 

2']']. selfishness. — the 

2^8. vallies; early spelling recorded in the NED; so, in 

Blake 
281. footstep, the 
28^. Nature's: Nature fair Earth; possibly intended for 

Nature, fair Earth. 
28p. the vale: h written through a }v 
2p2-8. The quotation marks are supplied. 
2p^. with: written through ?/[ ] 
2p5. thee. — get 
[Below line 298, Shelley's line count: 1^88] 



Page 108. A DIALOGUE 

/. /. brave: brav. The v comes at the right edge; there 
is no e. If Shelley has one or two more letters to get 
into a word, he will, as a rule, bend the word down- 
ward at the margin sufficiently to fit them in. But in 
this case he has not done so, nor has the page (or any 
other page) been trimmed. 

/. 2. grave: gra; written partly below the line and crowded 
into the margin 

I. 8. steeps: The t is not crossed, giving it the appearance 
oil. 

1. 14. me 

I. 21. Death: D changed from d; e is a capital. Apparently 



(352) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

Shelley began to write a small d, realized he wanted a 

capital, inadvertently wrote a capital E, then went 

back and capitalized the d. 
I. 22. shore 
I. 25. mortal 
I. 26. above 
Footnote, another 

Contains 

transgress: trangress 
I. ^2. its: it's; written above canceled thy 
I. 56. day 
1.^8. Death 

I. 4^. shrine: shine; crowded into the margin 
/. 44. destroyer: written destroyers with s canceled 
[Below line 44, Shelley's line count: 1632] 

Page 110. HOW ELOQUENT ARE EYES! 

Title. No title in manuscript 

Date. There is a short rule under the date. 

/. 2. frenzied: frienzied 

I. 28. desire 

I. 35. shrine: shine 

I. 40. joy 

[Below line 40, Shelley's line count: 16^2] 

Page 112. HOPES THAT BUD IN YOUTHEUL 
BREASTS 

Title. No title in manuscript 

/. /. bud written through live, which has been lightly 

smudged out. 
/. 2. time: Shelley has a colon after time; in his day a colon 

(353) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

would sometimes be used where today we would use a 
semicolon. 

/. 6. mine: m written through }w 

I. II. planted: planten. Shelley's eye, in copying, was per- 
haps caught by the n of Heaven or riven. 

I. ly. sin 

[Below line 21, Shelley's line count: i6p^] 

Page 113. TO THE MOONBEAM 

Title. No title in manuscript, but so titled by Shelley in 
letter to T. J. Hogg. See above, p. 240. 

/. 5. grow 

grow: There is a space between the g and r; the r is 
long and irregularly shaped; Shelley's eye perhaps 
strayed from the page as he was copying. 

/. 70. shadow: ad written through }rou 

I. 12. Yet written through And 

I. 75. mine: i written through y 

[Below line 28, Shelley's count: 7723] 

Page 115. POEMS TO MARY (General title supplied by 
editor.) 

Advertisement: There is a short rule under the word 
Advertisement. 

are: a written through we 

discriminating: Either the first loop of the first n 
rises high and gives the letter the appearance of ti, or 
Shelley, in copying, has inadvertently written ti twice 
(discrimitiating). 

me, will 

that time 

before inserted above a canceled after 

(354) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

Page 116. TO MARY I 

Date. The date appears one line below the last line of the 
Advertisement and one line above the title To 
Mary I. (Rule supplied.) 
Title. Mary — / 
I. 2. so 

I. II. forgiven. 

Footnote. This footnote was apparently written before 
the copying of the poem was completed. It begins on 
leaf 56, verso, continues on the last three lines of leaf 
57, recto, then on the last four lines of 57, verso, and 
ends on the last four lines of 58, verso, with the foot- 
note to "To Mary II" above it. But "To Mary I" 
ends on 57, recto, about halfway down the page; after 
it there come seven blank lines. So that Shelley could 
have ended the note on this page, and presumably 
would have done so had he realized that the space 
would be available. The indication seems to be that 
the note was not in the manuscript from which he was 
copying. The final sentence has been heavily canceled. 
blasphemy. — 
alone. — 

/ instead: I ever instead with ever canceled 
side. — 
[Below line 28, Shelley's line count: ly^i]^ 

Page 118. TO MARY II 

Title. II is in heavier ink and blotted on opposite page. It 

was probably added later. 
Z.5. artf 
I. 4. me 
I. ly. There is not: written in very black ink through 

erased and smeared ^Indeed, tis 

(355) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page 119. TO MARY III 

/. 5. stone 

l. 4. Pours none written through smudged Where mur 

(see following line) 
I. 6. fell 
I. 8. decree. 
1. 16. love 
I. ly. I wretch! weep 

I. 20. tie 

II. 24-^. Shelley copied these lines in the reverse order, and 

then attempted to correct it. Opposite line 24 (his line 
25) he put a 7 in the left margin, opposite line 25 a 2. 

/. 50. eternal: written above a canceled heavenly 

I. 57. feeds 

[Below line 37, Shelley's line count: i8ogi\ 

Page 121. TO THE LOVER OF MARY 

I. 6. tenantless 

I. 7. thy warm: thy originally thine; the y was written 
through in; the w of warm was partly formed from the 
e of thine, 
caress 

I. /p. veil: probably viel; iel written through }ale 

I. 21. when: possibly where 

[Below line 22, Shelley's line count: 18^1, canceled] 

//. 25-55. This stanza is written in a different ink and with 
a different penpoint. These facts plus the canceled 
line-count number below line 22 indicate that the 
stanza was added later. The next line count {i86y) — 
at the end of the next poem ("Dares the Lama") — 
does not allow for this stanza. Nor does the final count 

( 356 ) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

(2822). Hence, the stanza was added after the next 
poem had been copied, and, presumably, after Shelley 
had completed the line count for the Notebook. The 
indication from the ink and other evidence is that 
Shelley counted lines as he went along. 

/. 52. eternal: Shelley completed only one stroke of an X 
above eternal to indicate the footnote (paralleling 
eternal love with virtue). 

I. 55. holier: holeir 

Footnote, synonimous: This spelling is recorded in the 
NED as used by Samuel Johnson. 

Page 123. DARES THE LAMA 

Title. No title in manuscript 

Date. Underlined twice 

I. 8. death: d written through y 

I. II. brood: The word looks rather like blood, but appar- 
ently Shelley's pen slipped upward on the r (he was 
writing near the gutter of the book) and gave it the 
appearance of an /. 

/. i^. blood 

I. 25. frightful: frighful 

I. 24. And: A written through ?FF 

/. 26. withered: it written through hi 

I. ^4. its: it's 

I. 35. me. it 
fly 

I. ^6. remains: slightly blotted and smudged 
die 

[Below line 36, Shelley's line count: iSSy"] 



(357) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page 125. I WILL KNEEL AT THINE ALTAR 

Title. No title in manuscript 

Date. Underlined with two dark heavy lines converging at 
each end 

i6. adore 

77. live. — 

2^. to written through the 

2p. destroyed 

50. Gold 

57. alloyed 

^4. its: it's; i written through smudged-out t 

55. nations. — it 
[Below line 36, Shelley's line count: ipo^] 

Page 127. FRAGMENT . . . BOMBARDMENT OF 
COPENHAGEN 

Title. Immediately below the last line of the title, there is 
a row of X's across the page. 

/. 5. perceives: percieves, with the dot over the e 

I. 6. clots: written through smudged-out } tinges 
with: inserted above the line 

/. ly. orient: Shelley apparently first wrote oriet, or orient 
with the n and t too close; then the t or nt was blotted, 
and he added another t but left the top of the first one 
sticking out from the blot. 

/. jp. shrieks: shieks; see shine for shrine, "A sabbath 
Walk," line 20. These are not misspellings but mis- 
writings. Apparently, forming the bottom loop of an 
/« if an r was to follow, gave Shelley the impression that 
he had written the r. It is an error similar to writing 
n for m. 

I. 20. pride: The descender of the p is short — something 

(358) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

we find from time to time in Shelley's writing — giv- 
ing the word the appearance of bride. 
[Below line 21, Shelley's line count: 192^] 

Page 128. ON AN ICICLE 

Date. Date appears above title. 

/. II. racking pain: racking is written into the margin, 

pain written above. 
1. 12. insult . to 
1. 14. there 
[Below line 21, Shelley's line count: 194^^ 

Page 129. COLD ARE THE BLASTS 

Title. No title in manuscript 

/. II. Till a 
sorrow 

1. 12. babes 

II. 21-4. quotation marks supplied 

I. 22. tempest: es formed from }le 

I. 23. blame: b written through p 

I. 25. flowers: flowrs 

I. 2y. drops, then. Such dots as these Shelley does not in- 
tend as periods. They seem to be a kind of non- 
descript, generalized form of punctuation. Usually 
they just indicate a pause, but sometimes they are 
found where a dash or even a question mark is re- 
quired. 

//. 29-^2. quotation marks supplied 

/. 50. on: n written through / 

/. 55. Louisa. — if 

[Below line 40, Shelley's line count: 198 f\ 

(359) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page 131. HENRY AND LOUISA 

Footnote. Spencer: "Spenser" was spelled "Spencer" in the 
first edition of Colin Clouts Come home againe 
(1595) and occasionally in later references. 
portraiture: Shelley apparently started to write pour 
and corrected it to por. 
pronounced: prounoiinced 

Date. Date appears above title. (See Plate V.) 

/. 3. canopy: y written through ies 

I. S. ay: following ay is a small cross apparently intended 
for a footnote that was not written 

/. p. hlood-h ottered: archaic; see the NED under "blood" 

/. 10 misery; 

I. 21 Heaven 

Stanzas III, IV, and part of V missing. Shelley has left 
the page blank except for the stanza numbers: III 
(then 9 blank lines), IV (9 blank lines), and V (1 
blank line). The line of dots does not appear in the 
Notebook, 

/. 22. Space for 5 lines has been left blank at the top of the 
page (before line 22). Lines 22-4 close the incomplete 
stanza V, and are written in darker ink than stanzas VI 
and VII. 

/. 57. felt 

I. ^4. returned. 

I. 5/. Here, in this breast, thou 

I. 52. empire be. b written through m. 

heart: Shelley seems to have first written healt, then 
put an r beside the top of the /. 
throne." (quotation marks supplied) 

I. 55. fair: fairs, s canceled 

(360) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

/. ^8. away: followed by a smudged question mark 
/. 6i. ray 
I. 68. its: it's 
I. yi. shalt 

God 

receive: possibly recieve; written partly below the line 
/. 8^. fears is the last word on the line; entwine is crowded 

in below the line; the quotation marks are above the 

line over fears. 
I. gg. spoke, the 
I. I20. memory;. The long sentence beginning at line 104 

ends here; the semicolons at lines 107 and 116 are 

Shelley's. 
/. 126. soulreviving 

1. 128. spring-flowers: Shelley's hyphen 
/. 1^8. tale 

1. 140. Tho' : o written through }at 
1. 142. sacrificed: sacrifized 
1. 1^2. succeed — 

never, never 
I. 755. weep 
1. 1^6. die. The e has an extra upstroke at the end, as 

though for emphasis, and there appears to be a dot 

under it. 
[Below line 156, Shelley's line count: }2i6'j; 21 is clear, 67 

is blurred.] 
I. i6g. Deep wept: wept written through ?£«[ ]?L 

moan and groan (line 170) are both followed by a 

stroke giving an appearance of s. 
I. iy6. this changed from there 

sand 
I. 777. woe. 
1. 184. fixed, dim 

(361) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

/. i8y. victory's shame: originally written victory stern; 
stern crossed out and shame written above it; 's added 
to victory (in lighter ink) 

/. I go. timid: probable reading 

/. 75?^. There is a stroke before the second is as though 
Shelley began to repeat H. 
dead: question mark and quotation marks supplied 

/. 795. Half: initial letter originally F, then changed to H 

I. ip6. is my: is my is written through is }he; Shelley per- 
haps intended to make a change but abandoned it. 
dead 

I. igy. Henry. 

I. ipp. whelmed: written above crossed-out dried 

I. 202. fling.: period and quotation marks supplied 

/. 216. her: he written through th 

I. 224. break 

I. 22^. unformed — 

/. 2^0. bend 

I. 2^2. pale, deaths 

I. 255. the chain: large e written through ose 

1. 2^4. binds: bind; Shelley originally intended those 
chains in line 253. 
soul, 

I. 256, thine 

I. 2^y. shine: period and quotation marks supplied 

/. 2^8. voice, the 

I. 26y. crumbling: cru written through }ru 

I. 272. bed; 

I. 2yy. death; 

I. 2y8. hate 

I. 2yg. breast: re written through os. 

I. 281. Why?: original / changed to ? by Shelley 

/. ^00. When: possibly Where 

(36a) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

l. ^11. Steady: written above a crossed-out bronzed 
[Below line 315, Shelley's line count: 2^26] 

Page 144. A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSELLOIS 
HYMN 



Title. There is a short rule below the title. 
/. /. Band 

2. thee 

8. joy 

g family 

75. soil 

18. you. on 

22. free: followed by a short line which is perhaps the 
besfinnins^ of an exclamation mark 

24. tyranny 

25. hope: hopes, s crossed out 

28. Koszul {Jeunesse, p. 403) silently adds in before des- 
pots and is followed by Ingpen (Shelley, Complete 
Works, IV, 342), but the phrase could be in apposi- 
tion to despots. 

I. 2C}. head 

I. 50. quake: qu written through sh 
dread 

I. 52. Man 

I. 55. country 

I. 40. Victory 

I. ^cf. cruelty 

I. $8. Victory 

[Below line 58, Shelley's line count: 2^84. Shelley's next 
line count indicates 60 lines of text missing on torn- 
out pages immediately following (leaves 78 and 79); 
see Bibliographical Description, above p. 329.] 

(363) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Page 147. WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH 

Title. Short rule under title 

very: verry 
1. 14. traitorous: traiterous 
1. 16. tired: The word looks more like tried than tired but 

Shelley's zV's and n's are not always distinguishable. 

Shelley uses "tired frame" in "To the Moonbeam," 

line 11. 
/. 7^. shrine: shine; as before 
[Below line 23, Shelley's line count: 246'j; 2 written 

through 7] 

Page 148. ZEINAB AND KATHEMA 

Title. Short rule under title 

Kathema: An h has been smudged out following the 
final a. Shelley apparently thought of spelling the 
name Kathemah. Possibly it was so spelled in the man- 
uscript he was copying. 

Z. 18. sun written above the line, punctuation (as given 
here) follows setting 

1. 19. A faint He thought, smudged-out, appears on the 
top line of the page. Shelley, after writing He thought 
on the top line decided to begin one line down. His 
object was doubtless to make it clear that the words 
began a new stanza. His previous stanza had finished 
on the last line of the preceding page because it had 
been forced down on the page by the presence of the 
title. Normally, for this poem, the final stanza on a 
page ends two lines up from the bottom. 

I. 24. care 

I. 26. gave; 

(364) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

/. 55. Zeinah: Zeniab 

I. ^6. invaders 

bra7id: written below the line 

/. 5p. peace, 

I. ^4. mother's gore: written below the line. Usually Shel- 
ley has no apostrophes; this time he has two — one 
under the r of dear on the line above and one in the 
space between the two words. The shade of the ink 
indicates that the one under the r was placed at the 
time of the writing. The second perhaps indicates a 
rereading in which Shelley failed to see the first apos- 
trophe which is close to the r of dear. 

I. 68. heap the 

God!" : exclamation point and quotation marks sup- 
plied 

/, 73. now 

I. yS. endeared 

I. 80. unvarying: v written through w 

I. 86. sown 

I. p5. There: corrected from Their 

I. p^. Whilst: 1st written through ch 
zone 

1. 100. veil: viel 

I. 108. frames 

I. lop. Art: A written through a 

I. III. Heaven: Heavn, crowded downward into the mar- 
gin 

/. 116. wide altered 

1. 120. Safe, 

I. 12^. came to a written through smudged out th[ ]a 
}city }of. If this is thro' a city of, it may mean that 
Shelley inadvertently began to copy from a stanza 
which he did not include in the Notebook version. 

/, 128. deathy: apparently first written deth; the ascenders 

(365) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

of this t and h were then joined to make a large a, 
and thy was added. 

I. 735. its: first written her, er crossed out, i added before 
the h, the h crossed to make t, and s inserted 

/. 140. filled, he 

1. 142. avail' d: written above the line 

1. 14 p. creak: There is an ascender written in over the r; 
Shelley perhaps thought of changing the word to 
clank. 

I. 1^0. weight, 

I. 1^2. Calmly. — in 

1. 1^6. guest" : quotation marks supplied 

/. 757. He: H formed from Th 

[At end of line 160, Shelley's line count: 2628, faint] 

/. 166. was: w written through [ ] (See Plate VI.) 

/. 770. With: written through smudged-out An 
crime 

I. 1^2. rays written above crossed-out beams 

grace written (in browner ink) above crossed-out 
mark 

I. ly^. Changed to written (in browner ink) above crossed- 
out Even like 

I. 777. hope written above crossed-out heart 

I. lyS. plan 

[Below line 180, Shelley's line count: 2648; below it, an- 
other number, very faint: 2600'] 

Page 155. THE RETROSPECT 

Date. 18 1 2: 2 written through o 

I. 12. steel, : steel; Shelley's semicolon replaces four 

smudged-out dots. 
I. 48. mien: mein 

I. 5<5. Heaven: followed by a blotted period or comma 
/. yo. misery, 

(366) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

7^. its: it's 

8 1, my: m formed from an 

84. sought, it 

po. perish, 

p2. could: CO is written through w 

p6. ray 

11^. vale 

118. its: it's 

i2p. mien: mein 
. 757. brain 
. 1^4. sadness 
. 146. feeling: written through crossed-out passion 

148. see: se written through }p or ?/r 

164. crown: written above crossed-out coronets 

bleeding: above the line with caret below. Crowns, 
bleeding and the caret are in darker ink and were 
presumably added later. 
[Below line 168, Shelley's line count: 2y6y] 



Page 161. THE WANDERING JEW'S SOLILOQUY 

7. Triune: above the line and indicated by a caret 

5. swells 

p. Light: Liight 

75. contempt 

18. that: at written through en 

22. crew 

24. their: thier, dot over e 

25. their: thier 

26. foreknown 

27. omniscient: There is a line through omn; perhaps 
Shelley intended to cross out the word and then 
changed his mind. 



(367) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 



I. 2p. remit 

then: n appears to have been formed from s 
[Below line 29, Shelley's line count: 2yp6 

16 



2822] 

Page 163. TO lANTHE 

Date. Sepf originally written Oct; Oct canceled 
/. J. sake: 

1. 12 O: o; over the o is a mark that looks like a circum- 
flex accent, 

jair: air written through rail 

Page 164. EVENING — TO HARRIET 

/. 8. dream, 

Below line 14. 3/**; i written through o 

Page 165. TO HARRIETT ("Thy look of love") 

[From this point on all writing (including all dates) is 
in Harriet Shelley's hand until we come to Shelley's 
notation on leaf 140, verso; see Bibliographical De- 
scription, above, p. 329.] 

/. p. give (See Plate VII.) 

/. //. own too late 

I. 75. from: originally written to, canceled, and from writ- 
ten above 

/. 14. state 

1. 16. hate 

I. 25. guide 

I. 50. love 

Cook's Hotel appears below line 18, and is on the last 

(368) 



TEXTUAL NOTES 

line of the page on which the poem begins. May 1814 
is written below line 30. 

Page 167. FULL MANY A MIND 

Title. No title in manuscript 
1. 4. despair 

Page 168. TO HARRIET ("Oh Harriet, love like mine") 

Title. Following "To Harriet" there is a series of nine 

dots. 
I. 2. destroy 
I. 5. woes, 
I. 4. grief 

I. 24. unvarying: unvayrying 
I. 28. misery's: miseries 

pain 
I. ^6. For: preceded by smudged-out jo 
On line 37: Cum Elam [sic] 

Page 170. LATE WAS THE NIGHT 

Title. No title in manuscript 
/. 2. walls: wals 

I. 4. mountain: possibly mountains 

II. yS. These lines are obviously corrupt, but there seems 

no easy way of amending them. Perhaps Harriet, in 
copying, reversed the order for the rhyme words at 
the end of lines 6 and 7. This would be easy to do 
if the manuscript from which she was copying had 
these words in the margin crowded above or below 
the line — a common practice with Shelley. Even so, 
however, the lines still would not make much sense. 

(369) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

/. 6. murderer's: murderes; an extra stroke has been added 
to the first r. 

/. 8. murderer: murderes 

I. 77. he can save: possible reading if some of the letters 
(almost illegible) are highly compressed; perhaps 
simply can save. Possibly the original read "See that 
fair form heav'n can save." We find "Rest awhile, hap- 
less victim, and heaven will save" in "Bereavement," 
one of the poems in St. Irvyne, and in his early poems 
on similar subjects Shelley often repeated phrases. 
Harriet could conceivably have misread "that" for 
"Heav'n" in Shelley's script. 

I. 18. hare 

I. 20. around her: her interlineated 

//. 20-21. A stanza space has been supplied here; in the orig- 
inal there is no break. 

/. 21. mile 

I. 22. victim: victims 

1. 24. cold-stricken: cold-striken; written above crossed- 
out wide, which comes just before wild 

Page 171. TO ST IRVYNE 



.4. 


past 


•7- 


night 


.8. 


by 


. 9. 


sigh 


. 10 


. confess 


.24 


. on me 



(370) 



tS>^tS.^iS>^i^^iS>^i^^(S>^^ 



Reference Sources 
Abridged Title List 



Abinger Manuscripts. The manuscripts and letters of 
William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and others in 
the possession of Lord Abinger (Pforzheimer Micro- 
film). 

Cameron, The Young Shelley. Kenneth Neill Cameron: 
The Young Shelley, Genesis of a Radical. New York, 

1950- 
DowDEN, Shelley. Edward Dowden: The Life 0/ Percy 

Bysshe Shelley. London, 1886. 

Godwin, Political Justice. William Godwin: Enquiry Con- 
cerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals 
and Happiness, ed. F. E. L. Priestley. Toronto, 1946. 

Grabo, a Newton among Poets. Carl Grabo: A Newton 
among Poets. Chapel Hill, N. C, 1930. 

Hogg, Shelley. Thomas Jefferson Hogg: The Life of Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, in The Life of Percy Bysshe Shel- 
ley ... , ed. Humbert Wolfe. London, 1933. (Vols. ML) 

Hughes, The Nascent Mind of Shelley. A. M. D. Hughes: 
The Nascent Mind of Shelley. Oxford, 1947. 

Ingpen, Shelley in England. Roger Ingpen: Shelley in Eng- 
land: New Facts and Letters from the Shelley-W hitton 
Papers. London, 1917. 

(371) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

King-Hele, Shelley. Desmond King-Hele: Shelley, the Man 
and the Poet. New York, i960. 

KoszuL, Jeunesse. Andre Koszul: La Jeunesse de Shelley. 
Paris, 1910. 

Letters about Shelley. Letters about Shelley Interchanged 
by Three Friends — Edward Dowden, Richard Gar- 
nett and Wm. Michael Rossetti, ed. R. S. Garnett. 
London, 1917. 

Mary Shelley's Journal. Mary Shelley's Journal, ed. Freder- 
ick L. Jones. Norman, Okla., 1947. 

Med WIN, Shelley. Thomas Medwin: The Life of Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, ed. H. Buxton Forman. Oxford, 1913. 

NED. New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. 
Oxford, 1949. 

New Shelley Letters. New Shelley Letters, ed. W. S. Scott. 
New Haven, Conn., 1949. 

Paterson's Roads. [Daniel] Paterson: A New and Accurate 
Description of All the Direct and Principal Cross 
Roads in England and Wales and Part of Scotland. 
London, [various dates]. 

Paul, Godwin. C. Kegan Paul: William Godwin, His 
Friends and Contemporaries. London, 1876. 

Peacock, Memoirs. "Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley," 
The Works of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. H. F. B. 
Brett-Smith and C. E. Jones (Halliford Edition). Lon- 
don, 1934, Vol. VIIL 

Peck, Shelley. Walter Edwin Peck: Shelley, His Life and 
Work. Boston and New York, 1927. 

Shelley and his Circle. Shelley and his Circle, iy'jyi822, 
ed. Kenneth Neill Cameron. Cambridge, Mass., 1961. 

Shelley, Complete Works. The Complete Works of Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, ed. Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck 
(Julian Edition). London and New York, 1926-1930. 

Shelley, Forman ed., 1877. The Poetical Works of Percy 

(372) 



REFERENCE SOURCES 

Bysshe Shelley, ed. Harry Buxton Forman, Vol. IV. 
London, 1877. (Vols. I-II, 1876, III-IV, 1877.) 

Shelley, Rossetti ed., 1870. The Poetical Works of Percy 
Bysshe Shelley, ed. William Michael Rossetti. London, 
1870. 

Trelawny, Recollections. Edward John Trelawny: Recol- 
lections of Shelley & Byron in The Life of Percy 
Bysshe Shelley . . . , ed. Humbert Wolfe. London, 

1933. (Vol. n.) 

Wheatley, London. Henry B. Wheatley: London Past and 
Present, Its History, Association, and Traditions. Lon- 
don, 1891. 

White, Shelley. Newman L White: Shelley. New York, 
1940. 



(373) 



^0^^!S'Oi3'OiS'Oi3>C^ts.^i^ 



Index of Titles 



A Dialogue io8 

A retrospect of Times of Old 5)5 

A sabbath Walk ^8 

a Tale of Society as it is 62 

A Translation of The Marsellois Hymn 144 

A winter's day 56 

Cold are the blasts i2p 

Dares the Lama 12^ 

Dark Spirit of the desart rude yy 

Death-spurning rocks! 81 

Evening — to Harriet 164 

Falshood and Vice 44 

Fragment . . . bombardment of Copenhagen 727 

Full many a mind i6y 

Henry and Louisa i^i 

Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 112 

How eloquent are eyes! no 

I will kneel at thine altar 12^ 

Late was the night lyo 

Mary to the Sea-Wind P4 

On an Icicle 128 

On leaving London for Wales 55 

On Robert Emmet's tomb 60 

Passion 41 

Sonnet. On launching some bottles go 

Sonnet, On waiting for a wind pi 

(375) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Sonnet. To a balloon, laden with Knowledge Sp 

Sonnet. To Harriet on her birth day 88 

The Crisis 40 

The Monarch's funeral 68 

The pale, the cold and the moony smile yp 

The Retrospect i^^ 

The solitary Sy 

The Tombs 8^ 

The Voyage p8 

The wandering Jew's soliloquy 161 

To Death 7^ 

To Harriet ("Harriet! thy kiss to my soul is dear") p2 

To Harriet ("It is not blasphemy") 8^ 

To Harriet ("Never, O never") ^5 

To Harriet ("Oh Harriet, love like mine") 168 

To Harriet ("Whose is the love") 57 

To Harriett ("Thy look of love") 16$ 

To lanthe 16^ 

To Liberty ^8 

To Mary I 116 

To Mary II 118 

To Mary III up 

To November 50 

To St Irvyne lyi 

To the Emperors of Russia and Austria 48 

To the Lover of Mary 121 

To the Moonbeam 7/5 

To the Republicans of North America 7/ 

Written at Cwm Elian 7^ 

Written in very early youth i^y 

Written on a beautiful day in Spring 52 

Zeinab and Kathema 148 



(376) 



^O^^iS'^iS-^iS-^iS'O^Oi^ 



Index of First Lines 



Bright ball of flame that thro' the gloom of even 8p 

Brothers! between you and me 7/ 

Cold are the Blasts when December is howling 729 

Coward Chiefs! who, while the fight 48 

Dares the Lama, most fleet of the Sons of the Wind 12^ 

Darest thou amid this varied multitude 67 

Dark Spirit of the desart rude y^ 

Dear girl! thou art wildered by madness 116 

Death-spurning rocks! here have ye towered since Time 81 

Death, where is thy victory! 7^ 

Drink the exhaustless moonbeam where its glare J21 

Fair are thy berries to the dazzled sight 41 

Fair one! calm that bursting heart 118 

Full many a mind with radiant genius fraught iSy 

Harriet! thy kiss to my soul is dear p2 

Haste to battle. Patriot Band! 144 

Hopes that bud in youthful breasts 112 

How eloquent are eyes! no 

I implore thee, I implore thee, softly swelling Breeze P4 

I love thee. Baby! for thine own sweet sake 16^ 

I will kneel at thine altar, will crown thee with bays 12^ 

I'll lay me down by the church yard tree 147 

In that strange mental wandering when to live 52 

Is it the Eternal Triune, is it He 161 

It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven 8^ 

Late was the night, the moon shone bright lyo 

(377) 



THE ESDAILE NOTEBOOK 

Mary, Mary! art thou gone iicf 

May the tempests of Winter that sweep o'er thy tomb 60 

Moonbeam! leave the shadowy dale ii} 

Never, O never, shall yonder Sun 4^ 

O let not Liberty ^8 

O month of gloom, whose sullen brow ^o 

O take the pure gem to where Southernly Breezes 12S 

O thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue line 164 

O thou, whose radiant eyes and beamy smile 88 

O! wintry day! that mockest spring ^6 

O'er thy turrets, St Irvyne, the winter winds roar lyi 

Oh! for the South's benign and balmy breeze 5?/ 

Oh Harriet, love like mine that glows 168 

Quenched is old Ocean's rage 98 

She was an Aged Woman, and the years 62 

Sweet are the stilly forest glades ^8 

The glowing gloom of eventide 68 

The ice mountains echo, the Baltic, the Ocean i2y 

The mansions of the Kings are tenantless pj 

The pale, the cold and the moony smile 79 

These are the tombs, O cold and silent Death 8^ 

Thou miserable city! where the gloom 55 

Thy look of love has power to calm 16^ 

To trace Duration's lone career i^^ 

Upon the lonely beach Kathema lay 148 

Vessels of Heavenly medicine! may the breeze go 

When the peasant hies him home, and the day planet 

reposes 75 
When we see Despots prosper in their weakness 40 
Where are the Heroes? sunk in death they lie i^i 
Whilst Monarchs laughed upon their thrones 44 
Whose is the love that gleaming thro' the world 57 
Yes! my dagger is drenched with the blood of the brave 108 



«iO«50e'0«iO«>OJii 



A NOTE ON THE TYPE 

The text of this book was set on the Linotype in 
Baskerville. Linotype Baskerville is a facsimile cutting 
from type cast from the original matrices of a face de- 
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forerunner of the "modern" group of type faces. 

John Baskerville (1706-75), of Birmingham, England, 
a writing-master with a special renown for cutting in- 
scriptions in stone, began experimenting about 1750 
with punch-cutting and making typographical ma- 
terial. It was not until 1757 that he published his first 
work. His types, at first criticized, were in time recog- 
nized as distinct and elegant, and both they and his 
printing were universally admired. 

Composed, printed, and bound by 

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